The Amoral Predatory Professional Left Have the Sexual Hangups, Not the Right and Lawful Gunowners

The Deluge and Explosion of Sexual Harassment Claims Hits Epic Proportions With No End in Sight

She Said A Powerful Congressman Harassed Her. Here’s Why You Didn’t Hear Her Story.

“When you make private settlements, it doesn’t warn the next woman or the next person going into that situation.”

Originally posted on November 20, 2017, at 8:45 p.m.

Updated on November 21, 2017, at 12:58 p.m.

Paul McLeod

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Lissandra Villa

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Michigan Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat and the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives, settled a wrongful dismissal complaint in 2015 with a former employee who alleged she was fired because she would not “succumb to [his] sexual advances.”

Documents from the complaint obtained by BuzzFeed News include four signed affidavits, three of which are notarized, from former staff members who allege that Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the powerful House Judiciary Committee, repeatedly made sexual advances to female staff that included requests for sex acts, contacting and transporting other women with whom they believed Conyers was having affairs, caressing their hands sexually, and rubbing their legs and backs in public. Four people involved with the case verified the documents are authentic.

Conyers confirmed he made the settlement in a statement Tuesday afternoon, hours after this story was published, but said that he “vehemently denied” the claims of sexual harassment at the time and continues to do so.

And the documents also reveal the secret mechanism by which Congress has kept an unknown number of sexual harassment allegations secret: a grinding, closely held process that left the alleged victim feeling, she told BuzzFeed News, that she had no option other than to stay quiet and accept a settlement offered to her.

“I was basically blackballed. There was nowhere I could go,” she said in a phone interview. BuzzFeed News is withholding the woman’s name at her request because she said she fears retribution.

Last week the Washington Post reported that Congress’s Office of Compliance paid out $17 million for 264 settlements with federal employees over 20 years for various violations, including sexual harassment. The Conyers documents, however, give a glimpse into the inner workings of the office, which has for decades concealed episodes of sexual abuse by powerful political figures.

“I was basically blackballed. There was nowhere I could go.”

The woman who settled with Conyers launched the complaint with the Office of Compliance in 2014, alleging she was fired for refusing his sexual advances, and ended up facing a daunting process that ended with a confidentiality agreement in exchange for a settlement of more than $27,000. Her settlement, however, came from Conyers’ office budget rather than the designated fund for settlements.

Congress has no human resources department. Instead, congressional employees have 180 days to report a sexual harassment incident to the Office of Compliance, which then leads to a lengthy process that involves counseling and mediation, and requires the signing of a confidentiality agreement before a complaint can go forward.

After this an employee can choose to take the matter to federal district court, but another avenue is available: an administrative hearing, after which a negotiation and settlement may follow.

Some members of Congress have raised major concerns with the current system over the years, but the calls for an overhaul have grown louder in the post-Weinstein era. Members have argued that 90 days is too long to make a person continue working in the same environment with their harasser; that interns and fellows should be eligible to pursue complaints through this process; and that it is unfair for a victim to have to pay for legal representation while the office of the harasser is represented for free by the House’s counsel.

In this case, one of Conyers’ former employees was offered a settlement, in exchange for her silence, that would be paid out of Conyers’ taxpayer-funded office budget. His office would “rehire” the woman as a “temporary employee” despite her being directed not to come into the office or do any actual work, according to the document. The complainant would receive a total payment of $27,111.75 over the three months, after which point she would be removed from the payroll, according to the document.

The draft agreement viewed by BuzzFeed News was unsigned, but congressional employment records match the timing and amounts outlined in the document. The woman left the office and never went public with her story.

The process was “disgusting,” said Matthew Peterson, who worked as a law clerk representing the complainant, and who listed as a signatory to some of the documents.

“It is a designed cover-up,” said Peterson, who declined to discuss details of the case but agreed to characterize it in general terms. “You feel like they were betrayed by their government just for coming forward. It’s like being abused twice.”

Other lawyers named as representing the accuser could not be reached for comment. The Office of Compliance did not confirm or deny that it had dealt with the case.

“You feel like they were betrayed by their government just for coming forward. It’s like being abused twice.”

“Pursuant to the Congressional Accountability Act, the OOC cannot comment on whether matters have or have not been filed with the office,” Laura Cech, publications and outreach manager of the Office of Compliance, told BuzzFeed News in an email when asked to comment on this case.

Two staffers alleged in their signed affidavits that Conyers used congressional resources to fly in women they believed he was having affairs with. Another said she was tasked with driving women to and from Conyers’ apartment and hotel rooms.

Rep. Conyers did not admit fault as part of the settlement. His office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Monday, but released a public statement on the matter Tuesday afternoon.

The documents were first provided to BuzzFeed News by Mike Cernovich, the men’s rights figure turned pro-Trump media activist who propagated a number of false conspiracy theories including the “Pizzagate” conspiracy. Cernovich said he gave the documents to BuzzFeed News for vetting and further reporting, and because he said if he published them himself, Democrats and congressional leaders would “try to discredit the story by attacking the messenger.” He provided them without conditions. BuzzFeed News independently confirmed the authenticity of the documents with four people directly involved with the case, including the accuser.

In her complaint, the former employee said Conyers repeatedly asked her for sexual favors and often asked her to join him in a hotel room. On one occasion, she alleges that Conyers asked her to work out of his room for the evening, but when she arrived the congressman started talking about his sexual desires. She alleged he then told her she needed to “touch it,” in reference to his penis, or find him a woman who would meet his sexual demands.

She alleged Conyers made her work nights, evenings, and holidays to keep him company.

In another incident, the former employee alleged the congressman insisted she stay in his room while they traveled together for a fundraising event. When she told him that she would not stay with him, she alleged he told her to “just cuddle up with me and caress me before you go.”

“Rep. Conyers strongly postulated that the performing of personal service or favors would be looked upon favorably and lead to salary increases or promotions,” the former employee said in the documents.

Three other staff members provided affidavits submitted to the Office Of Compliance that outlined a pattern of behavior from Conyers that included touching the woman in a sexual manner and growing angry when she brought her husband around.

One affidavit from a former female employee states that she was tasked with flying in women for the congressman. “One of my duties while working for Rep. Conyers was to keep a list of women that I assumed he was having affairs with and call them at his request and, if necessary, have them flown in using Congressional resources,” said her affidavit. (A second staffer alleged in an interview that Conyers used taxpayer resources to fly women to him.)

The employee said in her affidavit that Conyers also made sexual advances toward her: “I was driving the Congressman in my personal car and was resting my hand on the stick shift. Rep. Conyers reached over and began to caress my hand in a sexual manner.”

The woman said she told Conyers she was married and not interested in pursuing a sexual relationship, according to the affidavit. She said she was told many times by constituents that it was well-known that Conyers had sexual relationships with his staff, and said she and other female staffers felt this undermined their credibility.

“I am personally aware of several women who have experienced the same or similar sexual advances made towards them by Rep[.] John Conyers,” she said in her affidavit.

A male employee wrote that he witnessed Rep. Conyers rub the legs and other body parts of the complainant “in what appeared to be a sexual manner” and saw the congressman rub and touch other women “in an inappropriate manner.” The employee said he confronted Conyers about this behavior.

“Rep. Conyers said he needed to be ‘more careful’ because bad publicity would not be helpful as he runs for re-election. He ended the conversation with me by saying he would ‘work on’ his behavior,” the male staffer said in his affidavit.

“I don’t think any allegations should be buried…and that’s for anyone, not just for this particular office”

The male employee said that in 2011 Conyers complained a female staffer was “too old” and said he wanted to let her go. The employee said he set up a meeting in December 2011 to discuss “mistreatment of staff and his misuse of federal resources.” The affidavit says that Conyers “agreed that he would work on making improvements as long as I worked directly with him and stopped writing memos and emails about concerns.”

Another female employee also attested that she witnessed Conyer’s advances, and said she was asked to transport women to him. “I was asked on multiple occasions to pick up women and bring them to Mr. Conyers[‘] apartment, hotel rooms, etc.”

BuzzFeed News reached out to several former Conyers staffers, all of whom did not want to speak on the record. One former staffer, who did not want to be named, said she was frustrated by the secretive complaint process.

“I don’t think any allegations should be buried…and that’s for anyone, not just for this particular office, because it doesn’t really allow other people to see who these individuals are,” said the former staffer. “When you make private settlements, it doesn’t warn the next woman or the next person going into that situation.”

Another staffer said Conyers’ reputation made people fearful to speak out against him. Aside from being the longest-serving House member and the ranking member of a powerful committee, Conyers is a civil rights icon. He was lauded by Martin Luther King Jr. and is a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

“Your story won’t do shit to him,” said the staffer. “He’s untouchable.”

In a statement to BuzzFeed News, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said she was not aware of the settlement.

“The current process includes the signing of non-disclosure agreements by the parties involved. Congresswoman Jackie Speier has introduced legislation that will provide much-needed transparency on these agreements and make other critical reforms,” Pelosi said in the statement. “I strongly support her efforts.”

BuzzFeed News; Source: Office of Compliance

“Speaker Boehner was not aware of this,” Dave Schnittger, a spokesperson for John Boehner, told BuzzFeed News in an email Tuesday. Boehner was the speaker of the House when the settlement was made.

Speaker Paul Ryan’s called the story “extremely troubling” in a statement the morning after the story broke.

“A Committee hearing last week examining this issue led to a new policy of mandatory training for all members and staff,” Ryan said. “Additional reforms to the system are under consideration as the committee continues its review. People who work in the House deserve and are entitled to a workplace without harassment or discrimination.”

The documents also show that there was a belief among at least some staffers that the office was a jealous environment. Some of the documents allege Conyers offered his protection when staff would complain to him about management in the office.

Nicholas Kamm / AFP / Getty Images

Rep. Jackie Speier speaks during a House Administration Committee hearing on preventing sexual harassment in the congressional workplace, November 14.

California Democrat Rep. Speier and colleagues in the House and Senate have introduced legislation that would overhaul the complaint process, including requiring the Office of Compliance to publicly name the office of any member who enters into a settlement. The bill would also allow complainants to waive mediation and counseling, set up a victims’ counsel, and require all congressional offices to go through harassment training every year.

Conyers’ office has a history of ethical run-ins. In 2016, his former chief of staff Cynthia Martin pleaded guilty to receiving stolen property after she refused to reimburse $16,500 that was mistakenly deposited in her account. A preliminary investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics found that Conyers continued to pay Martin more than $13,000 per month when she was supposedly on unpaid leave.

In 2006, two former aides complained that Conyers made them babysit his children, run errands, and work on his reelection campaign while drawing their congressional salaries. There was also a bizarre incident in 2005 when 60 Thanksgiving turkeys, given to his staff to disperse to people, may have gone missing.

Conyers’ wife, former Detroit city councilor Monica Conyers, was sentenced to three years in prison over bribery charges in 2010. (One of the documents alleged Conyers began “aggressively acting out his sexual harassment behavior” following this.) Last year the couple renewed their vows. ●

If you have information or tips, there are a number of ways to securely share information with BuzzFeed News, including SecureDrop and postal mail. You can also email us at tips@buzzfeed.com or send us an encrypted message over Signal at (646) 379-1975. The best tips include specific information and documentation in addition to names. You can learn more about how to reach us here.

BuzzFeed, in an article by Paul McLeod and Lissandra Villa posted late Monday, reports that Conyers settled a wrongful dismissal complaint with a former employee who charges she was fired because she wouldn’t “succumb to (his) sexual advances.”

Citing a complaint obtained by BuzzFeed including four signed affidavits from former staff members, the report says the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee made repeated sexual advances to female staff.

They allegedly included requests for sexual favors, contacting and transporting women with whom they believed Conyers was having affairs, and rubbing their legs and backs in public.

The report goes on to bare “the secret mechanism by which Congress has kept an unknown number of sexual harassment allegations secret: A grinding, closely held process that left the alleged victim feeling … that she had no other option other than to stay quiet and accept the settlement …”

The article is entitled: “She Said That A Powerful Congressman Harassed Her. Here’s Why You Didn’t Hear Her Story.”

In an exclusive video interview recently recorded at the presidential suite of the historic Watergate Hotel, the victims of Bill Clinton’s alleged sexual assaults – Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, and Paula Jones – blasted the mainstream news media while praising Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report, as well as Breitbart News for fairly reporting on their stories.

Watch the video below:

The women recalled how Drudge on January 17, 1998 broke the story alleging Newsweekwas sitting on a bombshell news item that White House intern Monica Lewinsky was having an affair with President Clinton.

Stated Broaddrick: “Drudge was my hero. Absolutely my hero during all of that time. I could go to Drudge and know what was going on or you could go to the mainstream media, which Drudge now is. I mean they blasted him. This man stood up for us. Matt Drudge is our hero.” Willey and Jones expressed agreement.

“And Aaron, you have been very fair to us,” added Willey. “And you have told our stories and been very fair and allowed us to talk and tell our stories and that means a lot to us. Not a lot of people in the media today who want to hear our stories. Mainstream media does not want to hear our stories.”

“No, they are saying crawl back in the woodwork where you belong,” stated Broaddrick.

“Exactly. You are just women,” continued Willey, referring to what she said was the media’s poor treatment of Clinton’s sexual assault accusers. “And you are bimbos. And you are trailer trash. And you are sluts. And nobody cares what you have to say.”

“You do not matter,” stated Broaddrick. “Go back where you were.”

The three women made the statements during an until now unreleased section of an extensive video interview recorded last month.

Willey’s words about the media allegedly calling Clinton’s female accusers “sluts” were recorded weeks before “The View” host Joy Behar landed in hot water by seemingly referring to Clinton’s accusers as “tramps.”

“I want to apologize,” Baher said earlier this month, the day after she made the controversial comments. “I never, ever intend to belittle sexual assault and the women who are victims of it ever… I made a joke… I’m sorry.”

Baher made the remarks in question during a discussion about Donald Trump bringing Willey and two other Clinton sexual assault accusers, Juanita Broaddrick and Paula Jones, to the second presidential debate earlier this month.

“The View” host Sunny Hostin suggested that Hillary Clinton may have missed an opportunity to address the controversy during the second presidential debate.

“This is the thing though… If a woman sleeps with your husband, you’re not going to necessarily embrace them… That’s why when he brought up these allegations, I wonder if she missed the opportunity to address it in a way that the public would understand…” Hostin mused.

Behar disagreed, joking that there wasn’t much Hillary Clinton could say to the women.

Behar suggested the Democratic nominee could say: “ ‘I would like to apologize to those tramps that have slept with my husband.’ Maybe she could have said that.”

Eight women have told The Washington Post that longtime television host Charlie Rose made unwanted sexual advances toward them, including lewd phone calls, walking around naked in their presence, or groping their breasts, buttocks or genital areas.

There are striking commonalities in the accounts of the women, each of whom described their interactions with Rose in multiple interviews with The Post. For all of the women, reporters interviewed friends, colleagues or family members who said the women had confided in them about aspects of the incidents. Three of the eight spoke on the record.

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Five of the women spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of Rose’s stature in the industry, his power over their careers or what they described as his volatile temper.

“In my 45 years in journalism, I have prided myself on being an advocate for the careers of the women with whom I have worked,” Rose said in a statement provided to The Post. “Nevertheless, in the past few days, claims have been made about my behavior toward some former female colleagues.

“It is essential that these women know I hear them and that I deeply apologize for my inappropriate behavior. I am greatly embarrassed. I have behaved insensitively at times, and I accept responsibility for that, though I do not believe that all of these allegations are accurate. I always felt that I was pursuing shared feelings, even though I now realize I was mistaken.

“I have learned a great deal as a result of these events, and I hope others will too. All of us, including me, are coming to a newer and deeper recognition of the pain caused by conduct in the past, and have come to a profound new respect for women and their lives.”

Most of the women said Rose alternated between fury and flattery in his interactions with them. Five described Rose putting his hand on their legs, sometimes their upper thigh, in what they perceived as a test to gauge their reactions. Two said that while they were working for Rose at his residences or were traveling with him on business, he emerged from the shower and walked naked in front of them. One said he groped her buttocks at a staff party.

Reah Bravo was an intern and then associate producer for Rose’s PBS show beginning in 2007. In interviews, she described unwanted sexual advances while working for Rose at his private waterfront estate in Bellport, N.Y., and while traveling with him in cars, in a hotel suite and on a private plane.

Two women who worked for Charlie Rose say he emerged from a shower and walked naked in front of them while they were working at his home or traveling with him for business. Above, Rose at home in Bellport, N.Y. (Ben Baker/Redux)

“It has taken 10 years and a fierce moment of cultural reckoning for me to understand these moments for what they were,” she told The Post. “He was a sexual predator, and I was his victim.”

Kyle Godfrey-Ryan, one of Rose’s assistants in the mid-2000s, recalled at least a dozen instances where Rose walked nude in front of her while she worked in one of his New York City homes. He also repeatedly called the then-21-year-old late at night or early in the morning to describe his fantasies of her swimming naked in the Bellport pool as he watched from his bedroom, she said.

“It feels branded into me, the details of it,” Godfrey-Ryan said.

She said she told Yvette Vega, Rose’s longtime executive producer, about the calls.

“I explained how he inappropriately spoke to me during those times,” Godfrey-Ryan said. “She would just shrug and just say, ‘That’s just Charlie being Charlie.’ ”

In a statement to The Post, Vega said she should have done more to protect the young women on the show.

“I should have stood up for them,” said Vega, 52, who has worked with Rose since the show was created in 1991. “I failed. It is crushing. I deeply regret not helping them.”

Godfrey-Ryan said that when Rose learned she had confided to a mutual friend about his conduct, he fired her.

Megan Creydt worked as a coordinator on the show from 2005 to 2006, overlapping with Godfrey-Ryan.

“It was quite early in working there that he put his hand on my mid-thigh,” said Creydt, who agreed to be interviewed on the record to support other women who were coming forward with what she deemed to be more serious claims concerning Rose.

She said that during the incident, Rose was driving his Mini Cooper in Manhattan while she was sitting in the passenger seat.

“I don’t think I said anything,” she said. “I tensed up. I didn’t move his hand off, but I pulled my legs to the other side of the car. I tried not to get in a car with him ever again. I think he was testing me out.”

Her then-boyfriend confirmed to The Post that she told him the story at the time.

In addition to the eight women who say they were harassed, The Post spoke to about two dozen former employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Six said they saw what they considered to be harassment, eight said they were uncomfortable with Rose’s treatment of female employees, and 10 said they did not see or hear anything concerning.

“He was always professional with me,” said Eleonore Marchand Mueller, a former assistant of Rose’s who worked for him from 2003 to 2005. “I never witnessed any unprofessional incidents.”

The show’s small, informal structure, with roughly 15 employees, and the centrality of Rose’s authority on a program he owns led to uncertainty over how to respond, said the women who felt victimized. “There wasn’t anybody to report this to if you felt uncomfortable,” one of them said.

The employees worked for Charlie Rose Inc., and not Bloomberg LP or PBS, which said they did not provide human resources support for the show.

The environment brimmed with the young and potentially vulnerable, hungry for scarce television jobs. “There are so few jobs,” said one of the women who said Rose groped her. “You know if you don’t behave a certain way, there’s someone else behind you.”

Rose traveled frequently, jetting off to interview world leaders across the globe and splitting time between two New York City residences and homes in Bellport — on Long Island — and North Carolina. Often at his side was a rotating cast of young assistants and producers.

The informal structure of Rose’s small show — with roughly 15 employees — and the centrality of the veteran journalist’s authority on a program he owns led to uncertainty over how to respond, said the woman who felt victimized. “There wasn’t anybody to report this to if you felt uncomfortable,” one of them said. Above, Rose at a gala in New York on Oct. 30, 2017. (Mike Coppola/Getty Images for the National Committee on American Foreign Policy)

The young women who were hired by the show were sometimes known as “Charlie’s Angels,” two former employeessaid. Rose frequently gave unsolicited shoulder rubs to several of them, behavior referred to among employees as “the crusty paw,” a former employee said.

Rumors about Rose’s behavior have circulated for years. One of the authors of this report, Outlook contributing writerIrin Carmon, first heard and attempted to report on the allegations involving two of the women while she was a journalist at Jezebel in 2010 but was unable to confirm them. In the past several weeks in the wake of accusations against Harvey Weinstein, Carmon and Post investigative reporter Amy Brittain jointly began contacting dozens of men and women who had worked on the “Charlie Rose” show or interviewed for jobs there.

A woman then in her 30s who was at the Bellport home in 2010 to discuss a job opportunity said Rose appeared before her in an untethered bathrobe, naked underneath. She said he subsequently attempted to put his hands down her pants. She said she pushed his hands away and wept throughout the encounter.

A woman who began as an intern in the late 1990s and was later hired full time described a “ritual” of young women at the show being summoned by Rose to his Manhattan apartment to work at a desk there. The woman described a day when Rose went into the bathroom, left the door open and turned on the shower.

She said he began to call her name, insistently. She ignored him, she said, and continued working. Suddenly, he came out of the bathroom and stood over her. She turned her head, briefly saw skin and Rose with a towel and jerked back around to avoid the sight. She said he said, “Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

She said she told someone in the office, and word got around. A few days later, she said, a male colleague approached her, laughing, “Oh, you got the shower trick.” The woman’s sister confirmed that her sibling had told her about the shower incident soon after it occurred.

Another woman said that during her internship in the early 2000s, Rose groped her breasts and stomach as she drove him from Bellport back to Manhattan. Her then-boyfriend, now husband, confirmed that she described the incident to him immediately after it occurred. When Rose invited her to work regularly and stay overnight at Bellport, her boyfriend told her to refuse the offer, and she did, both told The Post.

Prestige and fear

Rose’s eponymous show, with its trademark black background and round oak table, has been in production since 1991. What it lacks in mass viewership, the “Charlie Rose” show makes up for in prestige and high-profile bookings of the likes of former president Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Warren Buffett. Rose’s show is produced by Charlie Rose Inc., an independent television production company, and distributed by PBS. It is filmed at Bloomberg headquarters in Manhattan.

Rose’s stature has only grown in recent years.

CBS tapped him in 2011 to help revamp its ailing morning show, now called “CBS This Morning,” expanding his audience. He has also been a contributing correspondent for “60 Minutes” for nearly a decade. His 2013 interview of Syria’s president won Emmy and Peabody awards. (None of the women who made accusations against Rose to The Post worked for PBS or CBS.)

Representatives from PBS, CBS and Bloomberg said they have no records of sexual harassment complaints about Charlie Rose.

When Time magazine named Rose one of its 100 most influential people in 2014, billionaire and former New York City mayor Michael R. Bloomberg described him as “one of the most important and influential people in journalism.”

Rose joined “CBS This Morning” in 2011. Here, he’s seen with co-anchor Norah O’Donnell, left, and Gayle King on March 13, 2017. (Michele Crowe/CBS via Getty Images)

Rose, who was divorced in 1980, has long had a reputation as a ladies man. His “CBS This Morning” co-host, Norah O’Donnell, introduced him at a 2014 fundraiser dinner by joking, “We’re all here because with Charlie Rose, one woman is never enough.” Rose graciously accepted honors that night by saying that he was lucky to have worked throughout his career with “women who were smarter, more thoughtful and more eloquent than I was.”

There was also less flattering coverage. The now-defunct Radar magazine in 2007 called him a “toxic bachelor” and repeated an unnamed woman’s claim that Rose had “palmed her buttock like a honeydew.” His then-attorney, David Boies, who has recently drawn criticism for his representation of Harvey Weinstein, demanded a retraction. The magazine refused.

The “Charlie Rose” show prides itself on its highbrow intellectual ambition, but his life is glamorous, full of black-tie galas and famous friends. He can be charming and generous, consulting favored employees for their opinions on what to ask heads of state or whisking them off to exotic locations for interviews. But his wrath was swift and often fiercely personal, according to interviews with multiple former employees.

“Everybody is terrified of him,” said one of the women who said that Rose groped her when she was an intern. “He creates this environment of constant fear. And then he’ll shine a spotlight on you and make you feel amazing.”

Multiple women said they had at first been reassured by the presence of Vega, Rose’s executive producer, who has worked with him for decades. Two women who spoke to The Post said they repeatedly reported Rose’s inappropriate sexual behavior to Vega.

‘His poor judgment’

Working for the “Charlie Rose” show was a longtime dream for Reah Bravo, who in 2007 was a 29-year-old graduate student studying international affairs at Columbia University. She struggled to make ends meet during her unpaid internship, accruing credit card debt and eating free cereal in the Bloomberg food court.

One day, several months into the internship, Rose offered her a side gig at his home in Bellport on Long Island.

“Here is the deal: I’ll pay you $2,500 for the week plus all expenses for food, movies etc.,” he wrote to her on Aug. 9, 2007. “You will be there from Monday August 13-Friday afternoon, August 17. Your primary responsibilities are to organize and catalogue all my books and tapes and files … It will help me a lot, be fun for you, and you will have a car all the time for whatever you need to do.”

Before she left for Bellport, Bravo said Vega told her that personal time with Rose was a key to becoming part of the team.

(Obtained by The Washington Post)

Bravo said she took the train to Bellport, where she said Rose met her at the Ronkonkoma station and took her to a bank to withdraw money to cover her expenses. She stayed at the Bellport home for about a week, sleeping in a bedroom in the main house. Rose was gone much of the time.

While she was there, Bravo said she received a message from a male producer. If Rose did anything “sketchy,” she said he told her, she should not hesitate to call the show’s car service to return home.

Late one night, Bravo said, Rose returned home after a night out. She said she tried to hurry out of the library in the guesthouse to return to her bedroom in the main house before Rose came in, but he intercepted her. She said he insisted that they have a glass of wine at the dining room table in the main house.

Then, he suggested they walk out to his dock and look at the moon, Bravo said. Once there, “he came up from behind me and he put his arms around me,” she said, remembering that she felt a mix of apprehension and confusion. “It reflected his poor judgment. How could a man of his stature and his power be doing something so inappropriate? . . . It seemed reckless.”

Caught off guard, she said she did not know how to respond and endured his embrace.

A day or two later, Bravo said, Rose drove her back to Manhattan. She said he began to tell her that he felt very alone in life, despite his wealth and success. He recalled a brush with death a year earlier during heart surgery in Paris and began to tear up, and she said she patted him on the shoulder to console him.

“I didn’t necessarily buy it,” she said. “I thought, ‘I’ll keep my distance and I feel sorry for him.’ But I didn’t think of him as a predator at that time.”

Bravo soon returned to Bellport for a second trip. She was working in the guesthouse and caught a glimpse of Rose rinsing off nude in an unenclosed outdoor shower. She said she quickly averted her eyes and moved away from the window.

Later, he asked if she had seen him showering, she said, andseemed disappointed when she said no. While at Bellport, Bravo said Rose repeatedly insisted that he needed to hear that she was comfortable at Bellport and how much she enjoyed it there.

She emailed him about her work ideas and also mentioned Bellport.

“Have I told you how much I absolutely enjoy it out there?” she wrote him on Sept 1, 2007. “The company, the conversation, the comfort…that said I’m happy to go out there for both the remainder of this weekend AND parts of the next in an effort to finish the books faster.”

That fall, she traveled with Rose to Aspen for a conference. On Oct. 1, after the trip, Bravo wrote an email to Vega, alluding to earlier issues with Rose:

“On a personal note, I know working for Charlie requires one to embrace his uniqueness and develop a professional relationship that can account for it. It’s taken a couple straight forward conversations between the two of us, but I feel I’m in a better place than previously. And that’s not to say that I was previously in a really bad place! It all might sound cryptic, but you seem to play somewhat of a motherly role for staff members and I just wanted you to know that I’m okay : )”

Vega responded the same day:

“I have some concerns for you especially in what you are trying to tell me in this email. Please know the following about me, I have worked with Charlie for 16 years, so there is nothing that I haven’t heard or possibly experienced – and that anything you ever reveal to me would be kept in confidence from anyone and from the top down, so that you can feel comfortable in that confidence…”

From left: Rose, “Charlie Rose” show executive producer Yvette Vega and Beth Hoppe, a PBS executive, speak at the 2013 Summer Television Critics Association tour in Beverly Hills, Calif. Two women who spoke to The Post said they repeatedly reported Rose’s inappropriate sexual behavior to Vega. In a statement, Vega says she regrets not doing more to protect the young women on the show. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

Toward the end of 2007, Bravo was given more responsibilities and Rose occasionally paid her for helping him prepare for interviews, speeches and conferences. Her new duties required more travel with Rose, and he frequently requested her company for working dinners, she said.

Rose would regularly hire drivers to take them around town. On more than one occasion, she said, he groped her in the back seat. One time, she said, he “grabbed me by my hair, holding a fist of it at the base of my scalp.” More than once, “he would grip my head tightly while talking to me. He held it so tightly that I couldn’t turn my neck in any direction. I was forced to look at him or to let him talk directly into my ear.”

In Indiana for a speaking engagement in March 2008, Rose summoned Bravo to his hotel suite to work on his speech. While she was working at a desk in the room, she said, he emerged naked from the shower and stood before a mirror where she could see him. She said she ignored him and kept working.

Later, flying on a small private plane alone with Rose, she said he requested that they watch a documentary about Algeria on a portable DVD player. Suddenly, she said, Rose got out of his seat and pressed his body onto hers.

“I felt at a loss. I mean, what am I going to do? We were how many feet up in the air?” she said, adding that they remained clothed. “I remember him being on top of me.”

Bravo said Rose’s advance was bizarre, brief and “animalistic.” Then he returned to his seat.

“I felt an immense sense of shame that I had greenlighted his actions because I didn’t fight back,” she said.

Bravo said she locked eyes with one of the two pilots as she disembarked. She said she interpreted his expression as one of “sympathy or maybe disgust.”

Later in 2008, she was hired as anassociate producer but was already looking for another job. The same year, Bravo was offered a job that paid three times as much as the one at the “Charlie Rose” show. In response, Rose took her to the Spotted Pig, a well-known restaurant in Manhattan, and dangled a position as a producer in Washington. She could even live in a Georgetown residence where he sometimes stayed, she said he told her.

She said she declined.

“I was leaving because I was getting away,” she said. “I would never want to live someplace where he had keys.”

Since then, Bravo has worked as a corporate speechwriter and now lives inEurope with her husband and their young son.

In retrospect, Bravo said she feels shame and embarrassment about her warm correspondence with Rose.

“I read old emails, and I sound so sycophantic, it makes me sick,” she said. “But it was what he wanted, it made my work easier, and to an extent, it was the same game most staff members played. Male staffers did it, too. They just weren’t feeling as pathetic about it.”

Looking back, she is struck by how calculated Rose’s approach seemed.

“He most definitely said, on numerous occasions, ‘I’ve never forced you to do something you didn’t want to do,’ ” she said. “He would say this forcefully and wait for my confirmation after he said this. I remember once wondering if I was being recorded.”

Blurred lines

Kyle Godfrey-Ryan was in her early 20s and had taken time off from her college studies in the mid-2000s when a friend offered to introduce her to Charlie Rose. She was unfamiliar with his show but was soon hired to be his assistant.

From the beginning, there was a blurring of the boundaries between Rose’s professional and private life, she said. On her first day on the job, Rose injured his foot. She tended to him as he recovered.

But soon, Godfrey-Ryan said, he began yelling at her, calling her stupid and incompetent and pathetic.

“He repeatedly attacked her in front of other people,” recalled a former producer who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “He once said that because she hadn’t gotten a college degree she would never amount to anything better than his secretary.”

After the bouts of rage, Godfrey-Ryan said, Rose would often be conciliatory.

“It would usually entail some version of him also touching me,” she said. “A hand on the upper thigh. He’d give a hug but touch the side of the breast.”

She said she ignored his actions. Then he began calling her as late as midnight and as early as 6 a.m.

“It would be wanting to know details of my sex life,” she said. “ ‘Who’s next to you? What do you do? Is he touching you?’ And I was like, ‘Okay, Charlie, I’ll see you tomorrow.’ I just acted like it wasn’t happening.”

She said other calls involved a “very specific, repetitive fantasy” of her disrobing at the Bellport home and swimming “back and forth in the pool in the moonlight” as he watched from his bedroom.

Her boyfriend at the time, now her husband, told The Post that he was often present for these calls but said he did not know what was being discussed. The content of the calls, however, was openly discussed in the office and even joked about, according to Godfrey-Ryan and the producer who worked there at the time.

Godfrey-Ryan also said Rose would repeatedly walk in front of her naked at one of his New York City residences. Her husband confirmed that she complained to him about it at the time.

She said she ignored the nudity. “He was getting more and more frustrated that I wouldn’t engage,” she said.

Godfrey-Ryan said she reported the touching and the calls to Vega, but nothing happened.

“She just made me feel like I was being a dramatic little girl,” Godfrey-Ryan said. She stopped reporting the behavior.

Godfrey-Ryan said she eventually confided to a mutual friend outside the show about Rose, and the friend told Rose.

She said Rose fired her.

“He took me out to lunch and told me how embarrassed he was, how he didn’t treat me like that,” she said. “It was really about how I got it wrong, and, obviously, I couldn’t work there anymore.”

She later went back to school at Columbia. She has since launched her own business, Tune.Studio, which uses infrasonic wave technology to treat stress and improve moods, leading to “peace and happiness.”

“It makes me a little upset to see him on television,” she said. “Everything I experienced with journalism there made me not want to stay.”

A job interview, then denial

Another woman gave multiple interviews to The Post about her experience with Rose but requested anonymity out of concern for her privacy.

In 2009, she was in her mid-30s, looking to break into broadcast journalism after studying politics and earning her graduate degree in Europe. While working at a cultural foundation in New York City, her boss offered to put her in touch with Charlie Rose.

Rose responded with interest.

The meetings that followed, she said, were unconventional: a dinner at a restaurant, late at night with Rose’s prominent friends, where he drank a lot of wine. A sudden weekend invitation to lunch continued with her tagging along as Rose shopped for furniture. When he drove her home, she said she listened in alarm as he berated a producer over the phone.

Then he turned to the job applicant. “He put his hand on my knee and said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry about that,’ ” she said. “He said, ‘I hope you don’t mind, I’m from the South, we’re touchers.’ ”

No job offer came, but on June 8, 2010, Rose got back in touch, according to an email the woman provided. She was still unemployed and the job Rose described sounded ideal.

“He talked about this position, which he referred to as being his intellectual partner, that I would be the executive producer for global content,” she recalled.

By now, she had been told the unorthodox interview process was standard because of Rose’s packed schedule and desire to do the hiring for all positions by himself.

As part of the process, she visited Bloomberg’s Manhattan office and also discussed the job with Rose at his apartment.

“My producers come here all the time to work,” she said he told her.

She said Rose mentioned a salary of $120,000, described the job as involving frequent international travel and asked for references. Rose soon suggested they see how they traveled together by having her visit his Bellport house, she said.

On June 18, Rose sent her an email inviting her to the house that evening.

“As I mentioned, I’m going to my place on long island tonight to write…and then coming back tomorrow for a dinner. This is to invite to visit…

“You have your own wing of the house, or even a guesthouse, It’s on the water, plus Olympic pool, tennis court, plenty of movies and books and sailing and I run on the beach at sunrise and sunset…This has no influence on our dialogue about work projects.”

He added near the end of the email: “Bring someone if you like. I’m on deadline, so i will be writing all the time and will not be entertaining except breaks for exercise and meals. Let me know…before noon.”

(Obtained by The Washington Post)

Eager to land the job, the woman agreed to travel with Rose to Bellport, which is about 60 miles from Manhattan.

She gave the following account:

That evening, after stopping for dinner and getting lost, they arrived at the house after midnight. She did not see anyone else there. Rose proposed she choose a DVD of his show that they could watch together. After the show, Rose gave her a tour of the property. The guesthouse, she noticed, was packed with clutter, uninhabitable.

At the pool, Rose dangled his legs in the water andthensaid that he needed to change because his pant legs were wet. He returned wearing a white bathrobe, which was open; he wore nothing underneath.

“I thought, I’m doomed,” she said. “I was completely panicked. In retrospect, I thought of a million things I could have done.”

She said she was not intoxicated — Rose had drunk his wine and then hers at the restaurant — but said he appeared to be. It was nearly 2 a.m. and she was exhausted, she said. She also said she felt alone and powerless. It was the middle of the night, they were on his secluded property, and she did not know how to drive.

“I started talking in this feeble and compulsive way,” she said. “I started talking about power, how the abuse of power can be. He completely lost it. ‘What are you talking about? That’s certainly not the case.’ ”

She said he then tried to put a hand down her pants.

“By the time he touched me the first time, he was already very angry,” she said. “I was scared, and I was also kind of frozen.”

After that, her memory is “hazy,” she said. They ended up in his bedroom.

“I really, honestly, I’ve tried so hard, especially recently, since I’ve been thinking about this, to try to remember what happened between sitting by the pool and being in his bed,” she said.“I have no recollection of how we went from here to there. I do remember I was crying the entire time.”

He reached down her pants again, she said, and she pushed his hands away. As she wept, she said, Rose asked her, “Baby, oh baby, why are you crying?”

The encounter ended when he appeared to be asleep and she felt she could leave the room, she said.

The next day, she said there was little mention of what had happened. She described the previous night to him “as a bit of a disaster” and he said, “What do you mean?”

A few days later, she followed up about the job.

In retrospect, she said, “Remaining silent allowed me to continue denying what had occurred. It was in that state of denial that I wrote to him asking about the job.”

He replied with his regrets.

“The whole thing was really the most humiliating and most degrading experience I’ve ever had,” the woman says now. A friend she confided in at the time described her as having been “distraught” in recounting what happened.

“To have been used in the way she was left her feeling really confused and really distressed,” the friend told The Post. The friend encouraged her to write about her experience, and she chose to do so as a short story.

In one of the drafts that she shared with The Post, a tall, drawling television host named “Johnny Pose” brings a young woman to his country home on Long Island to discuss a job opportunity.

The woman said she changed some key details about what happened by the pool. And in the story, unlike in real life, she said, she viewed the host with contempt rather than fear.

She said she submitted the story to several magazine editors in 2010 and 2011. Paris Review editor Lorin Stein declined to publish the story but wrote to her in March 2011, “It has the ring of truth (alas).”

The womantitled the story, “The Hunt.” The double entendre, she said, was intentional.

“I was hunting for a job,” she told The Post, “and he was hunting for me.”

Exclusive: NYT White House correspondent Glenn Thrush’s history of bad judgment around young women journalists

Several women told Vox about their experiences with the star reporter, and the Times has suspended him pending an investigation.

New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush in the White House briefing room on February 24.

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Sexual harassment claims against yet another powerful man in media inspired New York Times White House correspondent Glenn Thrush to post an impassioned note on his Facebook page in October, calling on his fellow journalists to stand by women entering the field.

In the post, which linked to an article about the latest accusations against political journalist Mark Halperin, Thrush wrote, “Young people who come into a newsroom deserve to be taught our trade, given our support and enlisted in our calling — not betrayed by little men who believe they are bigger than the mission.”

It was a noble statement — but some Washington journalists I spoke to say it rings hollow, given Thrush’s own behavior with young women in the industry.

“He kept saying he’s an advocate for women and women journalists,” a 23-year-old woman told me, recounting an incident with Thrush from this past June. “That’s how he presented himself to me. He tried to make himself seem like an ally and a mentor.”

She paused. “Kind of ironic now.”

Thrush, 50, is one of the New York Times’s star White House reporters whose chronicles of the Trump administration recently earned him and his frequent writing partner Maggie Haberman a major book deal.

Thrush and the young woman met at her colleague’s going-away party at a bar near the Politico newsroom, she told me,and shared a few rounds of drinks in a booth. The night, she said, ended on a Washington street corner, where Thrush left her in tears after she resisted his advances.

The encounter was troubling enough to the woman that her friend Bianca Padró Ocasio, also 23 and a journalist, confronted Thrush about his behavior via text message the next day.

“I want to make sure you don’t lure young women aspiring journalists into those situations ever again,” she texted. “So help me out here. How can I do that?”

Bianca Padró Ocasio confronted Glenn Thrush over text message about his behavior the night before with her friend, a 23-year-old journalist. Some messages have been redacted to protect the friend’s privacy.

Screenshots courtesy of Bianca Padró Ocasio

Thrush was apologetic but defensive.

“I don’t lure anybody ever,” he wrote, according to screenshots provided by Padró Ocasio. “I got drunk because I got some shitty health news. And I am acutely aware of the hurdles that young women face in this business and have spent the better part of 20 years advocating for women journalists.”

If Thrush is acutely aware of what young women face in the business of political journalism, he should also know it’s because he himself is one of the problems women face. Five years ago, when Thrush and I were colleagues at Politico, I was in the same bar as Padró Ocasio’s friend — perhaps the same booth — when he caught me off guard, put his hand on my thigh, and suddenly started kissing me. Thrush says that he recalls the incident differently.

Three young women I interviewed, including the young woman who met Thrush in June, described to me a range of similar experiences, from unwanted groping and kissing to wet kisses out of nowhere to hazy sexual encounters that played out under the influence of alcohol. Each woman described feeling differentlyabout these experiences: scared, violated, ashamed, weirded out. I was — and am — angry.

Details of their stories suggest a pattern. All of the women were in their 20s at the time. They were relatively early in their careers compared to Thrush, who was the kind of seasoned journalist who would be good to know. At an event with alcohol, he made advances. Afterward, they (as I did) thought it best to stay on good terms with Thrush, whatever their feelings.

“I apologize to any woman who felt uncomfortable in my presence, and for any situation where I behaved inappropriately. Any behavior that makes a woman feel disrespected or uncomfortable is unacceptable,” Thrush said in a statement emailed to me on November 19.

In interviews with about 40 people in and around media who know Thrush, I got a picture of a reporter whose title doesn’t capture his power and stature. People who’ve worked with him say he can get a writer’s name in front of the right editor, if he wants. Newsroom leaders care what he thinks. Some reporters said Thrush had usedhis connections to help them land jobs or develop new sources.

When just sitting at a bar with a powerful man comes at a price

The downfall of Hollywood titan Weinstein has been a catalyst for a movement to stamp out workplace harassment, particularly the variety to pits powerful men against much less powerful women. They are facing consequences for their behavior like never before, including men in media. Halperin lost a coveted book deal. NPR news chief Michael Oreskes resigned. Leon Wieseltier lost funding for his new magazine. And Lockhart Steele, the editorial director of Vox Media, Vox’s parent company, was firedfor misconduct.

Thrush wasn’t my boss at Politico. He was a reporter and I was an editor. We were on different teams and hardly crossed each other’s paths. But he was an incredibly influential person in the newsroom and in political journalism, a world I was still trying to break into in a meaningful way at the time.

It wasn’t that Thrush was offering young women a quid pro quo deal, such as sex in exchange for mentorship. Thrush, just by his stature, put women in a position of feeling they had to suck up and move on from an uncomfortable encounter.

On that night five years ago, I joined Thrush and a handful of other reporters for a few rounds at the Continental, a Politico hangout in Rosslyn, Virginia. At first, nothing seemed strange, until the crowd had dwindled down to Thrush, me, and one other female colleague.

Thrush tossed a $20 bill at her and told her to take a cab and leave us, “the grown-ups,” alone. He slid into my side of the booth, blocking me in. I was wearing a skirt, and he put his hand on my thigh. He started kissing me. I pulled myself together and got out of there, shoving him on my way out.

In the morning, Thrush sent me an apologetic email. I didn’t save it, but I recall it as similar to the one he would later send to Padró Ocasio’s friend in June. He said he was sorry, but he didn’t say for what, exactly.

A few hours later, I saw him in deep conversation with a number of men I worked with. My gut told me something was up. I worried he was covering his tracks by spreading a rosy version of the night. As many people told me in the course of reporting this story, Thrush is a talker — or, as many put it, “a bullshitter.” He likes to hear gossip, and he likes to spread it.

Gradually, things in the office started to change for me. Certain men in the newsroom, I thought, started to look at me differently. Some of their comments seemed a bit too familiar or were outright offensive. I had a nagging sense that I just wasn’t as respected as I used to be.

I started to think maybe I shouldn’t be in journalism if I couldn’t hang in a tough newsroom. I found myself on edge, nervous and anxious all the time. I started to believe I had brought this all on myself.

In the course of reporting this story, I was told by a male reporter who’d worked at Politico at the time that my instinct was right. He said that the day after that night at the bar, Thrush told him about the incident, except with the roles reversed. I had come onto him, the reporter said Thrush told him, and he had gently shut it down.

In a statement, Thrush denied that he disparaged me to colleagues at Politico. He said that “the encounter described [in this story] was consensual, brief, and ended by me.”

The source said that Thrush frequently told versions of this story with different young women as the subject. He would talk up a night out drinking with a young attractive woman, usually a journalist. Then he’d claim that she came onto him. In his version of these stories, Thrush was the responsible grown-up who made sure nothing happened.

There was no conventional HR office at Politico at the time (a VP of human resources position was created there in 2016). So I brought my concern about the night to an experienced colleague right after the incident. When I believed rumors were damaging my standing in the office a few months later, I told a very senior editor. I was under the impression that nothing could be done. A spokesperson for POLITICO Brad Dayspring emphasized that no formal complaint ever reached the general counsel’s desk and that both the colleague and senior editor in question had left POLITICO years ago.

Women have a very different story to tell

One former Politico staffer told me that she’d become worried about her reputation after an encounter with Thrush sometime in the winter of 2012-’13. The scene was, again, a Politico going-away party. She said she and Thrush spoke most of the night, until they ended up the last two of the party left in the bar. She says she’d had a lot to drink and Thrush offered her a ride home.

Her recollection of the details is fuzzy, but one way or another, he ended up in her place.

“I had alcohol blur,” she says. But Thrush was far from being the grown-up who preventedthings from going too far; instead, she says, she was the one to raise objections. “I remember stopping him at one point and saying, ‘Wait, you’re married.’” After that, she says, he left almost immediately. “I remember that by the time he left, I didn’t have much clothes on.”

The woman says she was struggling at Politico at the time, and she wondered if gossip might have made her situation worse. “I don’t know if he told other male reporters or editors. Did that shade their opinion of me? There’s no way to know.”

She says she doesn’t believe she was pressured or that she’s a victim.

But she also says she wants others to know about what happened.

“The only regret I have is not telling more women. I told two. What if I had told five?”

One of the two women she told at the time shared with me her recollection of the conversation. “I remember she kept reemphasizing that they were both really drunk, that it was consensual,” the friend said. “And she did not believe it was an assault. But I do remember she was very rattled and upset and ashamed of what she saw as her role in it.”

Another woman described to me a 2013 Politico party that she attended in her early 20s. She said she was standing alone, Thrush came up to talk to her, and suddenly he leaned in and landed a wet kiss on her ear.

“It all happened very quickly. And he leaned in very quickly,” she said. “At the time, I remember thinking … adults sometimes kiss each other on the cheek. Then sometimes they miss and slobber on your ear. It was my way of thinking this wasn’t as weird as I thought.”

Over time, the “whisper network” of warnings about Thrush has grown louder

A 21-year-old woman arrived in Washington last year to intern in a journalism organization. She heard from people who don’t even work with Thrush to be careful. An employee at the Washington Post told her about him when she first arrived. A few months later, she says, a reporter at Roll Call warned her about him, too. She passed on the intel to four other female interns.

Multiple young women journalists I spoke to said that they’d heard serious warnings about Thrush from friends. The word among women just starting in Washington, they said, is to be careful if you meet him at an event with alcohol, or if he sends you a direct message on Twitter. (Thrush suspended his Twitter account in September, saying it was too much of a distraction.)

There’s something endearing and inspiring about interns who self-organized to guard themselves and each other against advances offered under guise of praise and professional advice — but there’s also something sad about a world in which the savvy move is to teach a young woman not to trust an older man who has something nice to say about her work.

And whispers don’t fix everything. When Bianca Padró Ocasio’s friend found herself at the bar with Thrush in June, with him asking her to leave and go to another bar with him, she went to the bathroom and texted Padró Ocasio and another female friend, both of whom were also in journalism.

“I’m drunk,” she texted, as saved screenshots of the messages show. “I’m nervous about this Glenn situation.”

The friends urged her to call an Uber.

“I am,” she responded. “I need to go home.”

“Who else is there??” one friend asked. “Is there a woman you can uber home with?”

Instead, the woman ended up leaving the bar with Thrush, who suggested they walk off some of their drinking — get some fresh air.

He repeatedly tried to take her hand as they walked, she recalls, but she kept pulling it away. They crossed the Key Bridge from the Virginia neighborhood where Politico’s office is located into Georgetown. He led her down an incline to a dimly lit path along the old C&O Canal bed. He kissed her, she says, and she panicked. Then her phone rang, jolting her. It was Padró Ocasio.

“I felt very protective of her,” Padró Ocasio said, describing the call. “I thought, she’s drunk right now. If I don’t do something, I’m not going to forgive myself.”

The young woman ordered an Uber — the receipt shows it was about 11 pm — and says she planned to call Padró Ocasio back once inside the car. In the few minutes she waited, she said, Thrush walked back over to her and started to kiss her again. She began to cry. When Thrush saw, he abruptly walked off, waving his hand flippantly, and left her alone to wait for her ride, she said.

Glenn Thrush sent an apologetic email to a woman who had met him at a going-away party. She described an unwanted encounter with him, but felt she had to send a cordial reply and stay on good terms.

Courtesy of the young woman on the email thread

Padró Ocasio’s friend received an email from Thrush the next morning with the subject line, “Nice meeting you!” followed by, “(And apologies?).” She responded congenially. “It was nice meeting you too! (And no worries haha).” She also met him a few weeks later at a tea shop near the White House, a meeting they’d discussed the night at the bar. Thrush sent her a few critiques of her stories. She said she feels that despite her misgivings, she has to stay on good terms with him since he is connected.

“I hate feeling obligated to make him think I think everything is fine,” she said. “It’s been this thing hanging over me. I feel like I have to be nice to this person just because he knows people.”

In his emailed statement, Thrush said that the night in June with the young woman was the last time he’s had a drink.He wrote:

The June incident [described above] was a life-changing event [for me]. The woman involved was upset by my actions and for that I am deeply sorry.

Over the past several years, I have responded to a succession of personal and health crises by drinking heavily. During that period, I have done things that I am ashamed of, actions that have brought great hurt to my family and friends.

I have not taken a drink since June 15, 2017, have resumed counseling and will soon begin out-patient treatment for alcoholism. I am working hard to repair the damage I have done.

“I feel really strongly about not creating a toxic environment”

In the course of his text dialogue with Padró Ocasio about the incident with her friend, Thrush wrote, “I feel really strongly about not creating a toxic environment.”

Back at Politico years ago, Thrush’s behavior contributed to a toxic environment I experienced. Dozens of people told me that Politico has changed dramatically since Carrie Budoff Brown took over a year ago as the publication’s editor. Multiple men and women who work for her say her standards are high and she has no time for the kind of behavior I described.

Budoff Brown was at the going-away party in June where Thrush was in the booth with the 23-year-old woman. She told me she noticed them talking but, like other attendees I talked to, she didn’t know that anything happened afterward.

“I was disappointed in Glenn but had no reason to think that anything would progress beyond the bar that night,” she said. “And I am saddened to learn in the course of your reporting that it did.”

“Great journalism and great business require a great workplace. My colleagues and I have worked hard to nurture a newsroom where people are supportive, good to each other, and where mutual respect is the way of life. We have zero tolerance for anything else.”

New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush inside the White House briefing room on February 24.

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

By the time of the June incident, Thrush was gone from Politico anyway — off to the New York Times, which has hired many of Politico’s top reporters over the years. But now he will be on hiatus pending a Times investigation that was sparked by my reporting for this story.

“The behavior attributed to Glenn in this Vox story is very concerning and not in keeping with the standards and values of The New York Times,” said Eileen Murphy, the senior vice president of communications for the New York Times, in a written statement. “We intend to fully investigate and while we do, Glenn will be suspended. We support his decision to enter a substance abuse program. In the meantime, we will not be commenting further.”

It’s the Times itself, of course, that has done so much to spark the current conversation around harassment with its exposés on Harvey Weinstein and Louis C.K. There’s probably no loftier perch in all of political journalism from which one could teach the trade and enlist young women into the calling — or, as the case may be, betray them.

Lindsay Menz, a 33-year-old woman who now lives in Frisco, Texas, reached out to CNN on Thursday hours after Tweeden made her story public. Menz said she wanted to share an “uncomfortable” interaction that left her feeling “gross.”

According to Menz, she attended the Minnesota State Fair with her husband and father in the summer of 2010, almost two years after Franken was elected to the Senate. Her father’s small business was sponsoring a local radio booth, and she spent the day meeting various elected officials, political candidates and celebrities and taking photos with them as they stopped by the booth.

When Franken walked in, Menz and her husband, who also spoke with CNN, said they recognized him right away. Menz said she had a brief and cordial exchange with the senator.

Then, as her husband held up her phone and got ready to snap a photo of the two of them, Franken “pulled me in really close, like awkward close, and as my husband took the picture, he put his hand full-fledged on my rear,” Menz said. “It was wrapped tightly around my butt cheek.”

“It wasn’t around my waist. It wasn’t around my hip or side. It was definitely on my butt,” she said, recalling that the brazen act lasted three or four seconds. “I was like, oh my God, what’s happening.”

“He reached around her and kind of pulled her into him,” said her husband Jeremy Menz, who didn’t see what happened behind his wife. “He pulled her in and pushed his head against her head. It was over pretty quick.”

Lindsay Menz told CNN that she walked away as soon as the photo was taken, without saying anything to the then-first term senator. When she reconnected with her husband moments later, she told him: “He totally grabbed my butt.” Jeremy Menz described that conversation the same way to CNN.

In a statement to CNN Sunday, Franken said he did not remember taking the photo with Menz and that he felt “badly” that she felt disrespected.

“I take thousands of photos at the state fair surrounded by hundreds of people, and I certainly don’t remember taking this picture,” Franken said. “I feel badly that Ms. Menz came away from our interaction feeling disrespected.”

“I felt gross. It’d be like being walking through the mall and some random person grabbing your butt,” Lindsay Menz said. “You just feel gross. Like ew, I want to wash that off of me.”

“I was upset. I wasn’t happy about it in the least,” Jeremy Menz said. “He was already gone and I wasn’t going to confront him. But yeah — I was in shock, really.”

Menz’s father, Mark Brown, was also in the radio booth that day but didn’t witness the moment. But he told CNN that his daughter told him about the incident right away.

Menz’s mother, Jodi Brown, also told CNN that she discussed the incident with her daughter immediately after it happened. She said she distinctly recalls her son-in-law saying to her: “Our senator just groped my wife right in front of me.”

In the photo of Menz and Franken, the side of the senator’s face is pressed up against Menz’s but the lower halves of their bodies are not shown. Both of them are smiling.

Menz posted the photo with Franken on Facebook at the time, on August 27, 2010. Her sister, Cari Thunker, commented under the photo: “Sorry, but you two aren’t Bibles (sic) width apart” — a reference, Thunker explained to CNN, to how physically close Menz and Franken were in the photo.

Minnesota statutes state that “intentional touching of the clothing covering the immediate area of the buttocks” is not considered criminal sexual conduct.

Menz told CNN that what happened immediately after she took the photo with Franken that summer day in 2010 has also stayed with her. Standing nearby was another politician — then-Minnesota Rep. John Kline.

As she was getting ready to take a picture with Kline, Menz said the congressman asked her whether they should “mutually put our arms around each other” — an interaction that struck her as being in stark contrast with what she had experienced moments ago with Franken.

Reached on the phone on Friday, Kline, a Republican who retired from Congress this year, confirmed that he attended the Minnesota State Fair in 2010, as he did most years. Kline could not remember seeing the interaction between Menz and Franken. But when CNN described Menz’s recollection of her interaction with Kline before they took a photo together, he told CNN: “As a matter of practice, I did that all the time.”

“If somebody wanted a picture, I would ask: should I put my arm on your back or your shoulder?” Kline said. He said that as a congressman, he was particularly inclined to do this when taking photos with women.

Lindsay and Jeremy Menz moved from Minnesota to Texas in 2014. Lindsay Menz is now a stay-at-home-mom of three young kids. Neither is registered with a political party and she said she has equally supported Republican and Democratic candidates while he said he has tended to favor Republicans. The couple voted last year for Donald Trump, and Menz said she has voted for Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who is a Democrat, in the past. Menz said she believes she has voted for Franken as well, but is not sure.

When Menz saw the news of Tweeden’s allegations against Franken on Thursday, she immediately discussed her own run-in with the senator from 2010 with her family. She also posted about it on Twitter and Facebook.

A friend encouraged Menz to contact a CNN reporter after seeing the network’s coverage of sexual harassment in recent days. Menz was emphatic that she “absolutely” would not have decided to share her story had Tweeden not done the same.

“I don’t want to paint my story in the same light as hers,” Menz said, saying she believes what happened to Tweeden is much worse.

Still, she said, “the reason I want to say something is if someone sees that I said something, maybe it would give them the courage to say something too.”

Franken has not made further statements to the press since releasing two apologies on Thursday. He has said he intends to fully cooperate if there is a Senate Ethics Committee investigation into his behavior.

“I respect women. I don’t respect men who don’t. And the fact that my own actions have given people a good reason to doubt that makes me feel ashamed,” he said in a statement. “I understand why we need to listen to and believe women’s experiences.”

Story 2: A Two Charlie Day — Charlie Rose, Should Be Fired By CBS, and Charlie Manson, Dead At 83, Should Have Been Executed By State of California — Remember One of The Victims — Sharon Tate — Videos

Notorious cult leader Charles Manson dead at 83

Charles Manson Interview with Tom Snyder (Complete)

Charles Manson Interview with Charlie Rose on Nightwatch (Complete)

Charles Manson – Dianne Sawyer Documentary

Charlie Manson Exposes Illuminati Methods

Published on Jan 28, 2013

Some choice clips from 20 years of media interviews with Charlie Manson. I hope this shows some of you just how intelligent and ahead of his time this man was. The story about Manson that media has jumped through hoops to avoid is a 100x more interesting.

Check out the work of Dave McGowan, only Manson and the satanic Hollwood elite controlling the music, film, & TV industry at that time. SO many more millions are awakened in this past decade thanks to 9-11. By all the fake “9-11 truth” groups that we know now were cointel and disinfo franchises sponsored and employed by intelligent agencies for both the federal government and military intelligence. Not only that, more private mercenaries were employed than actual US soldiers, almost all to guard the same people trying to have guns taken away from the middle class.

Los Angelino, Dave McGowan, author of “Programmed to Kill”, has written a never-before seen expose of all the ’60’s rock stars and how they all were sons and daughters of high ranking military brass, many claimed to be satanists themselves by surviving victims who swore under oath in front of a judge and US Grand Jury.

Victim in Roman Polanski sexual assault wants case dropped

Swiss prosecutors said Monday that they will examine allegations made by a German woman that filmmaker Roman Polanski raped her in 1972 in the town of Gstaad, when she was 15.The procedural move means that Switzerland has not ruled out prosecuting the filmmaker, despite questions as to whether the statute of limitations for the alleged crime has lapsed.Renate Langer, a 61-year-old former actress, told Swiss police last month that she met Polanski while working as a model in Munich before travelling to his home in Gstaad, where he raped her.’The prosecutor’s office in the Canton of Bern has confirmed … it will handle (the file)’, prosecution spokesman Christof Scheurer said in an email.Langer is the fourth woman to publicly accuse Polanski of sexual assault.Polanski pleaded guilty in the United States to having unlawful sex with Samantha Geimer – aged 13 at the time – in 1977 but fled the country before he could be sentenced. He remains a fugitive from the US justice system.British actress Charlotte Lewis also accused Polanski of assault in 2010. Lewis claimed the director ‘forced himself’ upon her just after her 16th birthday.In August, a woman identified only as Robin told a news conference in Los Angeles she was ‘sexually victimized’ by the French-Polish film director when she was 16, in 1973.Polanski’s film career has continued to flourish since he fled the US for France, where many consider him an icon.He has eight Cesars – the French equivalent of an Oscar – as well as a best director Academy Award for Holocaust drama ‘The Pianist.’

Manson — who infamously wore a swastika tattoo between his eyebrows — had spent more than 45 years in prison after being convicted of directing his “Manson Family” clan of troubled, mostly female, followers to kill seven people in California in the summer of 1969. The dead included actress Sharon Tate, the pregnant wife of director Roman Polanski, who was stabbed 16 times.

“I am crime,” Manson proudly proclaimed during a collect call to The Post from prison in the mid-2000s.

Born on Nov. 12, 1934, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a prostitute named Kathleen Maddox, Manson was officially dubbed “no name Maddox” at birth and apparently never knew his biological father.

From a very young age, Manson was a self-styled “outlaw” who took pride in being a criminal and reveled in all the mayhem he caused.

Manson committed his first crimes at around 13 years old, robbing liquor stores to scrounge together enough money to eat and rent motel rooms.

During his teenage years, Manson was in-and-out of juvenile halls and was placed in the Indiana Boys School, where he was sexually assaulted before he escaped in 1951, according to a book, “Manson In His Words,” by Nuel Emmons.

Between 1951 and 1955, Manson was repeatedly arrested for a variety of federal and state offenses, including stealing cars and robbing gas stations.

He was sent to reformatories, but none of them could wean him off his appetite for trouble.

By 1957, Manson was doing hard time in the federal prison at Terminal Island in Los Angeles for violating his probation after he was caught stealing a car and driving it over state lines.

He was eventually paroled, but started a career as a pimp and tried to cash forged US Treasury checks.

Manson found himself back at Terminal Island, where, on March 21, 1967 – the day of his release – he pleaded with prison officials to keep him there because he had been institutionalized for most of his life up to that point.

The wild-eyed, gnome-like figure ended up staying in Los Angeles, where he wrote and played music with a guitar – and began a hippie cult that drew tough men and disaffected suburban young women.

But Manson’s inability to build a musical career led him to an even darker path.

Manson hung out with Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson and the band’s record producer, Terry Melcher, but the latter refused to give him a record deal.

Furious, Manson put together a plan to exact his revenge, ordering several of his drug-addled, brainwashed followers to kill everyone inside Melcher’s former residence.

Despite knowing that Melcher no longer lived there, Manson specifically chose that location because it represented the music industry that had snubbed him.

Just as importantly, Manson, who harbored bizarre racist theories and philosophies, wanted to start a race war – something he called “Helter Skelter,” named after the Beatles song by the same name.

Polanski was overseas shooting a movie at the time, but Tate was hosting a low-key party with friends, including hair stylist Jay Sebring, coffee heiress Abigail Folger and her boyfriend, Wojciech Frykowski.

First, the killers fatally shot Steven Parent, who had been visiting a caretaker on the property. They then butchered to death Tate, Sebring, Folger and Frykowski.

The next night, Manson directed Watson, Krenwinkel, Atkins and another follower, Leslie Van Houten, to murder supermarket magnate Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary LaBianca, in their Los Feliz home.

In the decades since the murders, Manson has become an icon for troubled youth and a fixture in pop culture.

Charles Manson is escorted to his arraignment on conspiracy-murder charges in connection with the Sharon Tate murder case in 1969.AP

There have been numerous books written about the “Manson Murders,” as well as movies and documentaries detailing the case.

Manson himself reached almost mythical status through his strange and colorful prison interviews with notable media types, including Charlie Rose, Diane Sawyer and Geraldo Rivera.

In his final years in prison, Manson almost married Afton “Star” Burton, who moved from Mississippi to Corcoran just to be with him.

Although they filed for a marriage license, Manson never got hitched to the woman who is more than 50 years his junior.
No one who carried out murders at Manson’s behest has has ever been released from prison.

Watson, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten remained locked up in California while Atkins died in prison in 1989.

A board granted Van Houten – who at 19 was the youngest of the killers – parole in September.

But the ruling is still under review and California Gov. Jerry Brown will get to uphold, reject or modify the finding of parole early next year.

Sharon Marie Tate Polanski (January 24, 1943 – August 9, 1969) was an American actress and model. During the 1960s, she played small television roles before appearing in films and was regularly featured in fashion magazines as a model and cover girl. After receiving positive reviews for her comedic and dramatic acting performances, Tate was hailed as one of Hollywood‘s most promising newcomers.

On January 20, 1968, Tate married Roman Polanski, her director and co-star in 1967’s The Fearless Vampire Killers. On August 9, 1969, Tate and four others were murdered by members of the Manson Family in the home she shared with Polanski. At the time of her death, she was eight-and-a-half months pregnant with the couple’s son.

A decade after Tate’s murder, the actress’ mother, Doris Tate, in response to the growing cult status of the killers and the possibility of them being granted parole, organized a public campaign that resulted in amendments to the California criminal law. Tate’s mother went on to say that the law would “help transform Sharon’s legacy from murder victim to a symbol of victims’ rights”. A book by Tate’s sister, Debra Tate,[3] titled Sharon Tate: Recollection, was released in 2014.[4]

Life and career

Childhood and early acting career

Sharon Tate was born in Dallas, Texas, the eldest of three daughters, to Colonel Paul James Tate (1922–2005),[5] a United States Army officer, and his wife, Doris Gwendolyn (née Willett). At six months of age, Tate won the “Miss Tiny Tot of Dallas Pageant”, but her parents had no show business ambitions for their daughter. Paul Tate was promoted and transferred several times. By the age of 16, as a military brat, Tate had lived in six different cities, and she reportedly found it difficult to maintain friendships. Her family described her as shy and lacking in self-confidence. As an adult, Tate commented that people would misinterpret her shyness as aloofness until they knew her better.[6]

Tate attended Chief Joseph Junior High School (now Chief Joseph Middle School) from September 1955 to June 1958, and Columbia High School (now Richland High School) in Richland, Washington from September 1958 to October 1959. She attended Irvin High School in El Paso, Texas, from late fall 1959 to April 1960; and Vicenza American High School in Vicenza, Italy, from April to June 1960. She graduated from Vicenza American High School in 1961.

As she matured, people commented on Tate’s beauty; she began entering beauty pageants, winning the title of “Miss Richland” in Washington in 1959. She spoke of her ambition to study psychiatry, and also stated her intention to compete in the “Miss Washington” pageant in 1960, however, before she could do either, her father received orders to be stationed in Italy. With the family relocating in Verona, Tate learned that she had become a local celebrity owing to the publication of a photograph of her in a bathing suit on the cover of the military newspaper Stars and Stripes. She discovered a kinship with other students at the American school she attended in nearby Vicenza, recognizing that their backgrounds and feelings of separation were similar to her own, and for the first time in her life began to form lasting friendships.

Tate and her friends became interested in the filming of Adventures of a Young Man, which was being made nearby with Paul Newman, Susan Strasberg, and Richard Beymer, and obtained parts as film extras. Beymer noticed Tate in the crowd and introduced himself, and the two dated during the production of the film, with Beymer encouraging Tate to pursue a film career. In 1961, Tate was employed by the singer Pat Boone and appeared with him in a television special he made in Venice.[which?][citation needed]

Sharon Tate (at right wearing a dark wig) as Janet Trego in the 1964 “Giant Jackrabbit” episode of The Beverly Hillbillies with Max Baer, Jr. and Nancy Kulp

Later that year, when Barabbas was being filmed near Verona, Tate was once again hired as an extra. Actor Jack Palance was impressed by her appearance and her attitude, although her role was too small to judge her talent. He arranged a screen test for her in Rome, but this did not lead to further work. Tate returned to the United States alone, saying she wanted to further her studies, but tried to find film work. After a few months, Doris Tate, who feared for her daughter’s safety, suffered a nervous breakdown and her daughter was persuaded to return to Italy. [6]

The family returned to the United States in 1962, and Tate moved to Los Angeles, where she contacted Richard Beymer‘s agent, Harold Gefsky. After their first meeting, Gefsky agreed to represent her, and secured work for her in television and magazine advertisements. In 1963, he introduced her to Martin Ransohoff, director of Filmways, Inc., who signed her to a seven-year contract. She was considered for the role of Billie Jo Bradley, on CBS‘s sitcom, Petticoat Junction, but Ransohoff believed that she lacked confidence and the role was given to Jeannine Riley. Ransohoff gave Tate small parts in Mister Ed and The Beverly Hillbillies to help her gain experience, but was unwilling to allow her to play a more substantial role. “Mr. Ransohoff didn’t want the audience to see me till I was ready,” Tate was quoted in a 1967 article in Playboy.[7]

During this time, Tate met the French actor Philippe Forquet and began a relationship with him. They became engaged, but the relationship was volatile and they frequently quarreled. Career pressures drove them apart and they broke up.[citation needed]

In 1964, she met Jay Sebring, a former sailor who had established himself as a leading hair stylist in Hollywood. Tate later said that Sebring’s nature was especially gentle, but when he proposed marriage, she would not accept. She said she would retire from acting as soon as she married, and at that time she intended to focus on her career.[6]

Tate and Sebring traveled to London to prepare for filming, where she met the Alexandrian Wiccan High Priest and High Priestess Alex and Maxine Sanders.[10] Meanwhile, as part of Ransohoff’s promotion of Tate, he arranged the production of a short documentary called All Eyes on Sharon Tate, to be released at the same time as Eye of the Devil. It included an interview with Eye of the Devil director J. Lee Thompson, who expressed his initial doubts about Tate’s potential with the comment, “We even agreed that if after the first two weeks Sharon was not quite making it, we would put her back in cold storage,” but added he soon realized Tate was “tremendously exciting”.[6]

Tate played Odile, a witch who exerts a mysterious power over a landowner, played by Niven, and his wife, played by Kerr. Although she did not have as many lines as the other actors, Tate’s performance was considered crucial to the film, and she was required, more than the other cast members, to set an ethereal tone. Niven described her as a “great discovery”, and Kerr said that with “a reasonable amount of luck” Tate would be a great success.[6] In interviews, Tate commented on her good fortune in working with such professionals in her first film and said that she had learned a lot about acting simply by watching Kerr at work. Much of the filming took place in France, and Sebring returned to Los Angeles to fulfill his business obligations. After filming, Tate remained in London, where she immersed herself in the fashion world and nightclubs. Around this time, she met Roman Polanski.

Tate and Polanski later agreed that neither of them had been impressed by the other when they first met. Polanski was planning The Fearless Vampire Killers, which was being coproduced by Ransohoff, and had decided that he wanted the red-headed actress Jill St. John for the female lead. Ransohoff insisted that Polanski cast Tate, and after meeting with her, he agreed that she would be suitable on the condition that she wore a red wig during filming.

The company traveled to Italy for filming where Tate’s fluent Italian proved useful in communicating with the local crew members. A perfectionist, Polanski had little patience with the inexperienced Tate, and said in an interview that one scene had required 70 takes before he was satisfied. In addition to directing, Polanski also played one of the main characters, a guileless young man who is intrigued by Tate’s character and begins a romance with her.

As filming progressed, Polanski praised her performances and her confidence grew. They began a relationship, and Tate moved into Polanski’s London apartment after filming ended. Jay Sebring traveled to London, where he insisted on meeting Polanski. Although friends later said he was devastated, he befriended Polanski and remained Tate’s closest confidante. Polanski later commented that Sebring was a lonely and isolated person, who viewed Tate and himself as his family.[11]

Tate returned to the United States to film Don’t Make Waves with Tony Curtis, leaving Polanski in London. Tate played the role of Malibu and the film was intended to capitalize on the popularity of beach movies and the music of such artists as the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean. Tate’s character, billed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer publicity as “Malibu, Queen of the Surf”, wore little more than a bikini for most of the film. Disappointed with the film, she began referring to herself sarcastically as “sexy little me”. Before the film’s release, a major publishing campaign Coppertone sunsscreen featured Tate. The film opened to poor reviews and mediocre ticket sales, and Tate was quoted as confiding to a reporter, “It’s a terrible movie”, before adding, “Sometimes I say things I shouldn’t. I guess I’m too outspoken.”[6]

Polanski returned to the United States, and was contracted by the head of Paramount Pictures, Robert Evans, to direct and write the screenplay for Rosemary’s Baby, which was based on Ira Levin‘s novel of the same name.[9] Polanski later admitted that he had wanted Tate to star in the film and had hoped that someone would suggest her, as he felt it inappropriate to make the suggestion himself. The producers did not suggest Tate, and Mia Farrow was cast. Tate reportedly provided ideas for some of the key scenes, including the scene in which the protagonist, Rosemary, is impregnated.[citation needed] A frequent visitor to the set, she was photographed there by Esquire and the resulting photographs generated considerable publicity for both Tate and the film.

A March 1967 article about Tate in Playboy began, “This is the year that Sharon Tate happens …” and included six nude or partially nude photographs taken by Roman Polanski during filming of The Fearless Vampire Killers.[6] Tate was optimistic: Eye of the Devil and The Fearless Vampire Killers were each due for release, and she had been signed to play a major role in the film version of Valley of the Dolls. One of the all-time bestsellers, the film version was highly publicized and anticipated, and while Tate acknowledged that such a prominent role should further her career, she confided to Polanski that she did not like either the book or the script.[6]

Patty Duke, Barbara Parkins, and Judy Garland were cast as the other leads. Susan Hayward replaced Garland a few weeks later when she was dismissed.[12] Director Mark Robson was highly critical of the three principal actresses, but according to Duke, directed most of his criticism at Tate. Duke later said Robson “continually treated [Tate] like an imbecile, which she definitely was not, and she was very attuned and sensitive to this treatment”.[6] Polanski later quoted Robson as saying to him, “That’s a great girl you’re living with. Few actresses have her kind of vulnerability. She’s got a great future.”[11]

In interviews during production, Tate expressed an affinity for her character, Jennifer North, an aspiring actress admired only for her body. Some magazines commented that Tate was viewed similarly and Look published an unfavorable article about the three lead actresses, describing Tate as “a hopelessly stupid and vain starlet”.[6] Tate, Duke and Parkins developed a close friendship that continued after the completion of the film. During the shooting of Valley of the Dolls, Tate confided to Parkins that she was “madly in love” with Polanski.[7] “Yes, there’s no doubt that Roman is the man in my life,” Tate was quoted as saying in the New York Sunday News.[7] Tate promoted the film enthusiastically. She frequently commented on her admiration for Lee Grant, with whom she had played several dramatic scenes. Tate was quoted as saying, “I learned a great deal about acting in [Valley of the Dolls], particularly in my scenes with Lee Grant…. She knows what acting is all about and everything she does, from little mannerisms to delivering her lines, is pure professionalism.”[6]

A journalist asked Tate to comment on her nude scene, and she replied,

I have no qualms about it at all. I don’t see any difference between being stark naked or fully dressed — if it’s part of the job and it’s done with meaning and intention. I honestly don’t understand the big fuss made over nudity and sex in films. It’s silly. On TV, the children can watch people murdering each other, which is a very unnatural thing, but they can’t watch two people in the very natural process of making love. Now, really, that doesn’t make any sense, does it?[6]

An edited version of The Fearless Vampire Killers was released, and Polanski expressed disgust at Ransohoff for “butchering” his film. Newsweek called it “a witless travesty”, and it was not profitable. Tate’s performance was largely ignored in reviews, and when she was mentioned, it was usually in relation to her nude scenes. Eye of the Devil was released shortly after, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer attempted to build interest in Tate with its press release describing her as “one of the screen’s most exciting new personalities”. The film failed to find an audience, and most reviews were indifferent, neither praising nor condemning it. The New York Times wrote that one of the few highlights was Tate’s “chillingly beautiful but expressionless performance”.[6]

The All Eyes on Sharon Tate documentary was used to publicize the film. Its 14 minutes consisted of a number of scenes depicting Tate filming Eye of the Devil, dancing in nightclubs and sightseeing around London, and also contained a brief interview with her. Asked about her acting ambitions, she replied, “I don’t fool myself. I can’t see myself doing Shakespeare.” She spoke of her hopes of finding a niche in comedy, and in other interviews she expressed her desire to become “a light comedienne in the Carole Lombard style”.[6] She discussed the type of contemporary actress she wanted to emulate and explained that there were two in particular that she was influenced by: Faye Dunaway and Catherine Deneuve. Of the latter, she said, “I’d like to be an American Catherine Deneuve. She plays beautiful, sensitive, deep parts with a little bit of intelligence behind them.”[13]

Later in the year, Valley of the Dolls opened to almost uniformly negative reviews. Bosley Crowther wrote in The New York Times, “all a fairly respectful admirer of movies can do is laugh at it and turn away”.[14]Newsweek said that the film “has no more sense of its own ludicrousness than a village idiot stumbling in manure”, but a later article read: “Astoundingly photogenic, infinitely curvaceous, Sharon Tate is one of the most smashing young things to hit Hollywood in a long time.”[15] The three lead actresses were castigated in numerous publications, including The Saturday Review, which wrote, “Ten years ago … Parkins, Duke and Tate would more likely have been playing the hat check girls than movie-queens; they are totally lacking in style, authority or charm.”[6]The Hollywood Reporterprovided some positive comments, such as, “Sharon Tate emerges as the film’s most sympathetic character … William H. Daniels‘ photographic caress of her faultless face and enormous absorbent eyes is stunning.”[6]Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times praised Tate as “a wonder to behold”, but after describing the dialogue in one scene as “the most offensive and appalling vulgarity ever thrown up by any civilization”, concluded that, “I will be unable to take her any more seriously as a sex symbol than Raquel Welch.”[16]

Marriage to Roman Polanski

In late 1967, Tate and Polanski returned to London and were frequent subjects of newspaper and magazine articles. Tate was depicted as being untraditional and modern, and was quoted as saying couples should live together before marrying. They were married in Chelsea, London, on January 20, 1968, with considerable publicity. Polanski was dressed in what the press described as “Edwardian finery“, while Tate was attired in a white minidress.[9] The couple moved into Polanski’s mews house off Eaton Square in Belgravia.[7]Photographer Peter Evans later described them as “the imperfect couple. They were the Douglas Fairbanks/Mary Pickford of our time … Cool, nomadic, talented and nicely shocking.”[6]

While Tate reportedly wanted a traditional marriage, Polanski remained somewhat promiscuous and described Tate’s attitude to his infidelity as “Sharon’s big hang-up”. He reminded Tate that she had promised that she would not try to change him.[6] Tate accepted Polanski’s conditions, though she confided to friends that she hoped he would change. Peter Evans quoted Tate as saying, “We have a good arrangement. Roman lies to me and I pretend to believe him.”[17]

In the summer of 1968, Tate began her next film, The Wrecking Crew (1969), a comedy in which she played Freya Carlson, an accident-prone spy, who was also a romantic interest for star Dean Martin, playing Matt Helm. She performed her own stunts and was taught martial arts by Bruce Lee. The film was successful and brought Tate strong reviews, with many reviewers praising her comedic performance. The New York Times critic Vincent Canby criticized the film, but wrote, “The only nice thing is Sharon Tate, a tall, really great-looking girl.”[19] Martin commented that he intended to make another “Matt Helm” film, and that he wanted Tate to reprise her role.

Around this time Tate was feted as a promising newcomer. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award as “New Star of the Year – Actress” for her Valley of the Dolls performance.[20]

She placed fourth behind Mia Farrow, Judy Geeson, and Katharine Houghton for a “Golden Laurel” award as the year’s “Most Promising Newcomer” with the results published in the Motion Picture Exhibitor magazine.[21] She was also runner-up to Lynn Redgrave in the Motion Picture Herald‘s poll for “The Star of Tomorrow”, in which box-office drawing power was the main criterion for inclusion on the list.[22] These results indicated that her career was beginning to accelerate and for her next film, Tate negotiated a fee of $150,000.[6]

She became pregnant near the end of 1968, and on February 15, 1969, she and Polanski moved to 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon.[7] The house had previously been occupied by their friends, Terry Melcher and Candice Bergen. Tate and Polanski had visited it several times, and Tate was thrilled to learn it was available, referring to it as her “love house”. At their new home, the Polanskis continued to be popular hosts for their large group of friends, although some of their friends still worried about the strange types who continued to show up at their parties.[7] Encouraged by positive reviews of her comedic performances, Tate chose the comedy Twelve Plus One (1969) as her next project, as she later explained, largely for the opportunity to co-star with Orson Welles. In March 1969, she traveled to Italy to begin filming, while Polanski went to London to work on The Day of the Dolphin (1973). Frykowski and Folger moved into the Cielo Drive house.

After completing Twelve Plus One, Tate joined Polanski in London. She posed in their apartment for photographer Terry O’Neill in casual domestic scenes such as opening baby gifts, and completed a series of glamour photographs for the British magazine Queen. A journalist asked Tate in a late July interview if she believed in fate, to which she replied, “Certainly. My whole life has been decided by fate. I think something more powerful than we are decides our fates for us. I know one thing — I’ve never planned anything that ever happened to me.”[6]

She returned from London to Los Angeles, on July 20, 1969, traveling alone on the QE2. Polanski was due to return on August 12 in time for the birth, and he asked Frykowski and Folger to stay in the house with Tate until then.[citation needed]

Death and aftermath

Murder

On August 8, 1969, Tate was two weeks from giving birth. She entertained two friends, actresses Joanna Pettet and Barbara Lewis, for lunch at her home, confiding in them her disappointment at Polanski’s delay in returning from London. That afternoon, Polanski telephoned her as did her younger sister, Debra, who called to ask if she and their sister, Patti, could spend the night with her. Tate declined, offering to have them over another time. Later that evening, Tate dined at her favorite restaurant, El Coyote Cafe, with Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski and Abigail Folger, returning at about 10:30 p.m.[6]

Shortly after midnight, they were murdered by members of Charles Manson‘s “family” and their bodies were discovered the following morning by Tate’s housekeeper, Winifred Chapman. Police arrived at the scene to find the body of a young man, later identified as Steven Parent, shot dead in his car, which was in the driveway. Inside the house, the bodies of Tate and Sebring were found in the living room; a long rope tied around each of their necks connected them. On the front lawn lay the bodies of Frykowski and Folger. All of the victims, except Parent, had been stabbed numerous times. The coroner‘s report for Tate noted that she had been stabbed sixteen times, and that “five of the wounds were in and of themselves fatal”.[8]

Police took the only survivor at the address, the property’s caretaker William Garretson, in for questioning. Garretson lived in the guest house that was located on the property, but a short distance from the house, and not immediately visible. As the first suspect, Garretson was questioned and submitted to a polygraph test. Garretson stated that Parent had visited him at approximately 11:30 p.m. and left shortly thereafter. Garretson informed police that he had no involvement in the murders and did not know anything that could help the investigation. Police accepted his explanation and he was released.

Polanski was informed of the murders and returned to Los Angeles where police, unable to determine a motive, questioned him about his wife and friends. On Wednesday, August 13, Tate was interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California, with her son, Paul Richard Polanski (named posthumously for Polanski’s and Tate’s fathers), in her arms. Sebring’s funeral took place later the same day; the funerals were scheduled several hours apart to allow mutual friends to attend.

Life magazine devoted a lengthy article to the murders and featured photographs of the crime scenes. Polanski was interviewed for the article and allowed himself to be photographed at the entrance of the house, next to the front door with the word “PIG” — written in Tate’s blood — still visible.[23] Widely criticized for his actions, he argued that he wanted to know who was responsible and was willing to shock the magazine’s readers in the hope that someone would come forward with information.[11]

Curiosity about the victims led to the re-release of Tate’s films, achieving greater popularity than they had in their initial runs. Some newspapers began to speculate on the motives for the murders. Some of the published photographs of Tate were allegedly taken at a Satanic ritual, but were later proven to have been production photographs from Eye of the Devil. Friends spoke out against the portrayal of Tate by some elements of the media. Mia Farrow said she was as “sweet and pure a human being as I have ever known”, while Patty Duke remembered her as “a gentle, gentle creature. I was crazy about her, and I don’t know anyone who wasn’t.” Polanski berated a crowd of journalists at a news conference, saying that many times they had written that Tate “was beautiful. Maybe the most beautiful woman in the world. But did you ever write how good she was?”[6] Peter Evans later quoted the actor Laurence Harvey, who commented on Polanski immediately after the murders, “This could destroy Roman. Marriage vows mean nothing to him, but few men have adored a woman as much as he adored Sharon.”[17]

Polanski later stated that, in the months following the murders, he suspected various friends and associates, and his paranoia subsided only when the killers were arrested. Newspapers claimed that many Hollywood stars were moving out of the city, while others were reported to have installed security systems in their homes. Writer Dominick Dunne later recalled the tension:

The shock waves that went through the town were beyond anything I had ever seen before. People were convinced that the rich and famous of the community were in peril. Children were sent out of town. Guards were hired. Steve McQueen packed a gun when he went to Jay Sebring’s funeral.[24]

In September 1969, members of the Manson “Family” were arrested on unrelated charges, eventually leading authorities to a breakthrough on the Tate case as well. They explained that the motive for the murders was not the identity of the victims, but rather the house at that address, which had previously belonged to an acquaintance of Manson.

In 1994, the Tate/Polanski house was demolished and a new house was constructed on the site with the street address changed to 10066 Cielo Drive.[25]

Legacy

In 1992, the work of Sharon Tate’s mother, Doris Tate (seated), in support of victims’ rights was acknowledged by President George Bush. Sharon’s sisters, Debra and Patti, are also pictured.

In the early 1980s, Stephen Kay, who had worked for the prosecution in the trial, became alarmed that Manson Family member Leslie Van Houten had gathered 900 signatures on a petition for her parole. He contacted Tate’s mother, Doris, who said she was sure she could do better, and the two mounted a publicity campaign, collecting over 350,000 signatures supporting the denial of parole.[6] Van Houten had been seen as the most likely of the killers to be paroled; following Kay’s and Tate’s efforts, her petition was denied. Doris Tate became a vocal advocate for victims’ rights and, in discussing her daughter’s murder and meeting other crime victims, assumed the role of counselor, using her profile to encourage public discussion and criticism of the corrections system.[6]

For the rest of her life, she strongly campaigned against the parole of each of the Manson killers, and worked closely with other victims of violent crime. Several times, she confronted Charles Manson at parole hearings, explaining, “I feel that Sharon has to be represented in that hearing room. If they’re (the killers) pleading for their lives, then I have to be there representing her.” She addressed Tex Watson directly during her victim impact statement in 1984: “What mercy, sir, did you show my daughter when she was begging for her life? What mercy did you show my daughter when she said, ‘Give me two weeks to have my baby and then you can kill me’? … When will Sharon come up for parole? Will these seven victims and possibly more walk out of their graves if you get paroled? You cannot be trusted.”[6]

In 1992, President George Bush recognized Doris Tate as one of his “thousand points of light” for her volunteer work on behalf of victims’ rights. By this time Tate had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and her health and strength were failing; her meeting with Bush marked her final public appearance. When she died later that year, her youngest daughter, Patricia Gay Tate, known as Patti, continued her work. She contributed to the 1993 foundation of the Doris Tate Crime Victims Bureau, a nonprofit organization that aims to influence crime legislation throughout the United States and to give greater rights and protection to victims of violent crime.[26] In 1995, the “Doris Tate Crime Victims Foundation” was founded as a nonprofit organization to promote public awareness of the judicial system and to provide support to the victims of violent crime.[27]

Patti Tate confronted David Geffen and board members of Geffen Records in 1993 over plans to include a song written by Charles Manson on the Guns N’ Roses album “The Spaghetti Incident?”. She commented to a journalist that the record company was “putting Manson up on a pedestal for young people who don’t know who he is to worship like an idol.”[28]

After Patti’s death from breast cancer in 2000, her older sister Debra continued to represent the Tate family at parole hearings. Debra Tate said of the killers: “They don’t show any personal responsibility. They haven’t made atonement to any one of my family members.”[6] She has also unsuccessfully lobbied for her sister to be awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Colonel Paul Tate preferred not to make public comments; however, he was a constant presence during the murder trial, and in the following years attended parole hearings with his wife, and wrote letters to authorities in which he strongly opposed any suggestion of parole. He died in May 2005.[29][30]

Roman Polanski gave away all of his possessions after the murders, unable to bear any reminders of the period that he called “the happiest I ever was in my life”. He remained in Los Angeles until the killers were arrested. After, he fled to Europe to evade criminal charges of raping a 13-year-old girl. His 1979 film Tess was dedicated “to Sharon”, as Tate had read Thomas Hardy‘s Tess of the d’Urbervilles during her final stay with Polanski in London and had left it for him to read with the comment that it would be a good story for them to film together. He tried to explain his anguish after the murder of his wife and unborn son in his 1984 autobiographyRoman by Polanski, saying “Since Sharon’s death, and despite appearances to the contrary, my enjoyment of life has been incomplete. In moments of unbearable personal tragedy some people find solace in religion. In my case the opposite happened. Any religious faith I had was shattered by Sharon’s murder. It reinforced my faith in the absurd.”[11]

In July 2005, Polanski successfully sued Vanity Fair magazine for libel after it alleged that he had tried to seduce a woman on his way to Tate’s funeral. Among the witnesses who testified on his behalf were Debra Tate and Mia Farrow. Describing Polanski immediately after Tate’s death, Farrow testified, “Of this I can be sure — of his frame of mind when we were there, of what we talked about, of his utter sense of loss, of despair and bewilderment and shock and love — a love that he had lost.” At the conclusion of the case, Polanski read a statement, saying in part, “The memory of my late wife Sharon Tate was at the forefront of my mind in bringing this action.”[17]

The murders committed by the Manson “Family” have been described by social commentators as one of the defining moments of the 1960s. Joan Didion wrote, “Many people I know in Los Angeles believe that the Sixties ended abruptly on August 9, 1969, ended at the exact moment when word of the murders on Cielo Drive traveled like brushfire through the community, and in a sense this is true. The tension broke that day. The paranoia was fulfilled.”[6]

Tate’s work as an actress has been reassessed after her death, with contemporary film writers and critics, such as Leonard Maltin, describing her potential as a comedian. A restored version of The Fearless Vampire Killers more closely resembles Polanski’s intention. Maltin lauded the film as “near-brilliant” and Tate’s work in Don’t Make Waves and The Wrecking Crew as her two best performances, as well as the best indicators of the career she might have established.[31]Eye of the Devil with its supernatural themes, and Valley of the Dolls, with its overstated melodrama, have each achieved a degree of cult status.

Tate’s biographer, Greg King, holds a view often expressed by members of the Tate family, writing in Sharon Tate and the Manson Murders (2000): “Sharon’s real legacy lies not in her movies or in her television work. The very fact that, today, victims or their families in California are able to sit before those convicted of a crime and have a voice in the sentencing at trials or at parole hearings, is largely due to the work of Doris [and Patti] Tate. Their years of devotion to Sharon’s memory and dedication to victims’ rights … have helped transform Sharon from mere victim, [and] restore a human face to one of the twentieth century’s most infamous crimes.”[6]

In 2012, the book Restless Souls was published; authored by Alisa Statman, a close friend of Patti Tate, two short chapters in the book are written by Tate’s niece, Brie Tate. The book contains portions of the unfinished autobiographies of Tate’s father, mother, and sister, Patti, along with Statman’s own “personal interpretation[s]”. [32] Debra Tate has questioned the book’s veracity.[33]

On June 10, 2014, a coffee table book by Debra Tate, called Sharon Tate: Recollection, was released. It is the first book about Tate that is devoted exclusively to her life and career without covering her death, its aftermath, or the events that led to it. [4]

In pop culture

Memorial art exhibition

in 2009, American contemporary artist Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell presented a comprehensive mixed media art exhibition ICON: Life Love & Style of Sharon Tate: In honor of the 40th anniversary of Tate’s passing. With the blessing of the Tate family, Corbell created a 350-piece historic art exhibition celebrating Tate’s style and life. The art and fashion based presentation showcased images of Tate’s never before revealed wardrobe by designers such as Christian Dior, Thea Porter, Ossie Clark and Yves Saint Laurent.[34][35]Sharon was also mentioned in Jim Carrol’s song “it’s too late”.

Polanski underwent a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation,[6] and a report was submitted to the court recommending probation.[7] However, upon learning that he was likely to face imprisonment and deportation,[5][8]Polanski fled to France in February 1978, hours before he was to be formally sentenced.[9] Since then Polanski has mostly lived in France and has avoided visiting countries likely to extradite him to the United States.

This ultimately led to Polanski’s guilty plea to a different charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.[12]

According to Geimer’s testimony to the grand jury, Polanski had asked Geimer’s mother (a television actress and model) if he could photograph the girl as part of his work for the French edition of Vogue,[13] which Polanski had been invited to guest-edit. Her mother allowed a private photo shoot. Geimer testified that she felt uncomfortable during the first session, in which she posed topless at Polanski’s request, and initially did not wish to take part in a second but nevertheless agreed to another shoot. This took place on 10 March 1977, at the home of actor Jack Nicholson in the Mulholland area of Los Angeles. At the time the crime was committed, Nicholson was on a ski trip in Colorado, and his live-in girlfriend Anjelica Huston who was there left, but later returned while Polanski and Geimer were there. Geimer was quoted in a later article as saying that Huston became suspicious of what was going on behind the closed bedroom door and began banging on it, but left when Polanski insisted they were finishing up the photo shoot.[14] “We did photos with me drinking champagne,” Geimer says. “Toward the end it got a little scary, and I realized he had other intentions and I knew I was not where I should be. I just didn’t quite know how to get myself out of there.”[15] In a 2003 interview, she recalled that she began to feel uncomfortable after he asked her to lie down on a bed, and described how she attempted to resist. “I said, ‘No, no. I don’t want to go in there. No, I don’t want to do this. No!’, and then I didn’t know what else to do,” she stated, adding: “We were alone and I didn’t know what else would happen if I made a scene. So I was just scared, and after giving some resistance, I figured well, I guess I’ll get to come home after this”.[16]

Geimer testified that Polanski provided champagne that they shared as well as part of a quaalude,[17] and despite her protests, he performed oral, vaginal, and anal sex acts upon her,[18][19] each time after being told ‘no’ and being asked to stop.[12][20][21][22]

Although Geimer has insisted that the sex was non-consensual, Polanski has disputed this.[23][24]Under California law, sexual relations with anyone under the age of 14 is statutory rape.[25] Describing the event in his autobiography, Polanski stated that he did not drug Geimer, that she “wasn’t unresponsive”, and that she did not respond negatively when he inquired as to whether or not she was enjoying what he was doing.[26] The 28-page probation report submitted to the court by Kenneth Fare (signed by deputy Irwin Gold) concluded by saying that there was evidence “that the victim was not only physically mature, but willing.” The officers quoted two psychiatrists’ denial of Roman being “a pedophile” or “sexual deviate”.[27]

Claiming to protect Geimer from a trial, her attorney arranged a plea bargain.[4] Polanski accepted, and, under the terms of the agreement, the five initial charges were dismissed. Instead, Polanski pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.[28]

Conviction and flight

Under the terms of the plea agreement, the court ordered Polanski to report to a state prison for a 90-day psychiatric evaluation, but granted a stay to allow him to complete his current project. Under the terms set by the court, he traveled to Europe to complete filming.[29] Polanski returned to California and reported to Chino State Prison for the evaluation period, and was released after 42 days.[30] Polanski’s lawyers had the expectation that Polanski would get only probation at the subsequent sentencing hearing, with the probation officer, examining psychiatrist, and the victim all recommending against jail time.[31]

However, it is alleged in the documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, that things changed after an ex parte conversation between LA Deputy District Attorney David Wells and the judge, Laurence J. Rittenband. Wells was not an attorney of record on the case, but was an attorney for the People of the State of California, which was a party to the case. Thus, the communication with Wells was a one-sided external communication, which is prohibited by ethics law. Wells allegedly showed the judge a photo of Polanski with his arms around some ostensibly underage girls, and convinced Rittenband that Polanski should not be released.

Polanski’s attorneys assert that the judge suggested to them that he would send the director to prison and order him deported.[5] In response to the threat of imprisonment, Polanski bought a one-way ticket to England and fled the United States.[2] Shortly after Polanski fled, Rittenband denied he ever did anything that the 2008 documentary would go on to allege, by issuing the following statement:

I then stated that an appropriate sentence would be for Mr. Polanski to serve out the remainder of the 90-day period for which he had been sent to Chino, provided Mr. Polanski were to be deported by the Immigration and Naturalization Bureau, by stipulation or otherwise, at the end of the 90 days. I expressly stated that I was aware that the court lacked authority to order Mr. Polanski deported directly or as a condition of probation. However, based on the facts before me, I believed that the safety and welfare of the citizens of California required that Mr. Polanski be kept out of circulation for more than 90 days. However, since Mr. Polanski is an alien who had pleaded guilty to an act of moral turpitude, I believe that the interests of the citizens of California could be adequately safeguarded by a shorter jail term if Mr. Polanski would thereafter absent himself from the country.[32]

Polanski fled initially to London on 1 February 1978, where he maintained a residence. A day later he traveled on to France, where he held citizenship, avoiding the risk of extradition to the United States by Britain. Consistent with its extraditiontreaty with the United States, France can refuse to extradite its own citizens,[33] and an extradition request later filed by U.S. officials was denied. The United States government could have requested that Polanski be prosecuted on the California charges by the French authorities.[34]Polanski has never returned to England, and later sold his home there. The United States could still request the arrest and extradition of Polanski from other countries should he visit them, and Polanski avoided visits to countries (such as the UK) that were likely to extradite him and mostly travelled and worked in France, Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland.[citation needed] In 1979, Polanski gave a controversial interview with the novelist Martin Amis in which, discussing his conviction, he said “If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… fucking, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to fuck young girls. Juries want to fuck young girls. Everyone wants to fuck young girls!”[35][36][37][38]

Original reactions to his flight

Filmmaker Joseph Losey (who exiled himself to the UK after being blacklisted by HUAC) responded to Polanski’s flight by saying “I have not contacted him – and I’m not going to.” Actor Robert Stack called his flight “a coward’s way out,” and then added “the ranks are closing in on him.”[39]

Post-conviction

Geimer sued Polanski in 1988, alleging sexual assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress and seduction.[40] The case was settled out of court in 1993. After Polanski missed an October 1995 payment deadline, Geimer filed papers with the court, attempting to collect at least US$500,000. The court held that Polanski still owed her over $600,000, but it was unclear as of 2009 if this had since been paid.[41]

In a 2003 interview,[15] Samantha Geimer said, “Straight up, what he did to me was wrong. But I wish he would return to America so the whole ordeal can be put to rest for both of us.” Furthermore, “I’m sure if he could go back, he wouldn’t do it again. He made a terrible mistake but he’s paid for it.” In 2008, Geimer stated in an interview that she wishes Polanski would be forgiven, “I think he’s sorry, I think he knows it was wrong. I don’t think he’s a danger to society. I don’t think he needs to be locked up forever and no one has ever come out ever – besides me – and accused him of anything. It was 30 years ago now. It’s an unpleasant memory … (but) I can live with it.”[42]

In 2008, a documentary film of the aftermath of the incident, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Following review of the film, Polanski’s attorney, Douglas Dalton, contacted the Los Angeles district attorney’s office about prosecutor David Wells’ role in coaching the trial judge, Laurence J. Rittenband. Based on statements by Wells included in the film, Polanski and Dalton sought judicial review of whether the prosecutor acted illegally and engaged in malfeasance in interfering with the operation of the trial.[43] However, after Polanski’s arrest, David Wells recanted his statements in the film admitting that he had lied and “tried to butter up the story to make me look better”.[44]

In December 2008, Polanski’s lawyer in the United States filed a request to Judge David S. Wesley to have the case dismissed on the grounds of judicial and prosecutorial misconduct. The filing claims that Judge Rittenband (now deceased) violated the plea bargain by keeping in communication about the case with a deputy district attorney who was not involved. These activities were depicted in Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.[45] In January 2009, Polanski’s lawyer filed a further request to have the case dismissed, and to have the case moved out of Los Angeles, as the Los Angeles courts require him to appear before the court for any sentencing or dismissal, and Polanski did not intend to appear. In February 2009, Polanski’s request was tentatively denied by Judge Peter Espinoza, who said that he would make a ruling if Polanski appeared in court.[46][47][48] The same month, Samantha Geimer filed to have the charges against Polanski dismissed from court, saying that decades of publicity as well as the prosecutor’s focus on lurid details continues to traumatize her and her family.[49] Judge Espinoza also stated there was misconduct by the judge in the original case but Polanski must return to the United States to actually apply for dismissal.[50]

There is no statute of limitations governing the case because Polanski had already been charged and pleaded guilty in 1978 to having had unlawful sex with a minor.[51] While some legal experts interviewed in 2009 thought he might at that point face no jail time for unlawful sex with a minor, his failure to appear at sentencing is in itself a crime.[52]

On 7 July 2009, Polanski’s attorneys filed a petition for a writ of mandate (the California equivalent of a writ of mandamus) with the Second Appellate District of the California Court of Appeal in order to seek review of Judge Espinoza’s decision on an expedited basis.[53] The next day, the Court ordered the prosecution to file an opposition, thus indicating that it was assuming jurisdiction over the case.[53] This was unusual; petitions for extraordinary writs are usually summarily denied without any explanation.[54]

On 26 September 2009, Polanski was detained by Swiss police at Zurich Airport while trying to enter Switzerland, in relation to his outstanding 1978 U.S. arrest warrant. Polanski had planned to attend the Zurich Film Festival to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award.[55][56][57] The arrest followed a request by the United States that Switzerland apprehend Polanski. U.S. investigators had learned of his planned trip from a fax sent on 22 September 2009, from the Swiss Justice Ministry to the United States Department of Justice‘s Office of International Affairs, which had given them enough time to negotiate with Swiss authorities and lay the groundwork for an arrest.[58] Polanski had been subject of an Interpol red notice at the request of the United States since 2005.[59][60]

On 2 May 2010, Polanski published an open letter entitled “I can remain silent no longer!” on Bernard-Henri Lévy‘s web site.[65] In it, he stated that on 26 February 2010 Roger Gunson (the deputy district attorney in charge of the case in 1977, retired by the time of the letter) testified under oath before Judge Mary Lou Villar in the presence of David Walgren (the present deputy district attorney in charge of the case, who was at liberty to contradict and question Gunson) that on 16 September 1977 Judge Rittenband stated to all the parties concerned that Polanski’s term of imprisonment in Chino constituted the totality of the sentence he would have to serve. Polanski also stated that Gunson added that it was false to claim (as the present district attorney’s office does in their request for his extradition) that the time he spent in Chino was for the purpose of a diagnostic study.

On 12 July 2010, the Swiss court rejected the U.S. request and released Polanski from custody.[66] Because Polanski fled the Los Angeles court before being sentenced, all six of the original charges are still pending against him.[67][68]

Reactions to the arrest

In reaction to the arrest, the foreign ministers of both France and Poland urged Switzerland to release Polanski, who holds dual citizenship of both countries,[69] but subsequently withdrew their support for Polanski.

France

The arrest provoked particular controversy in France, where over the years many had downplayed the severity of Polanski’s crime, highlighting instead his achievements as a film director and the many years that had passed since his flight from the United States.[70]

The French minister of Culture and Communication, Frédéric Mitterrand, was especially vehement in his support, all the while announcing his “very deep emotion” after the questioning of the director, “a French citizen” and “a film-maker of international dimension”: “the sight of him thrown to the lions for an old story which doesn’t make much sense, imprisoned while traveling to an event that was intending to honor him: caught, in short, in a trap, is absolutely dreadful. Polanski,” Mitterrand continued, “had a difficult life” but had “always said how much he loves France, and he is a wonderful man”. There is, he added, “a generous America that we love, and a certain America that frightens us. It’s that America that has just shown its face.”[71][72][73] These reactions, however, resulted in political backlash in France.

Daniel Cohn-Bendit criticized these statements by Mitterrand, mainly on the grounds that it was a “matter of justice” inasmuch as “a 13-year-old girl was raped”, adding “I believe that a minister of Culture, even if his name is Mitterrand, should say: I’ll wait and read the files [myself]”.[74] “It is a tough call, since it is true that a 13-year-old girl was raped, that she said in her own words ‘I complained [as it was happening]’ and that she afterwards added ‘I accepted a large sum of money’ [to remain silent]”.[75]

Marc Laffineur, vice president of the French National Assembly and a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s center-right party, criticized government ministers for rushing to judgment, saying the charges against Polanski should not be minimized.

Marine Le Pen, from the National Front, during a TV talk show on how to prevent sex crimes recidivism, criticized Mitterrand for his support of Polanski.[76] She recalled that in 2005, Mitterrand had published a book strongly similar to memoirs[77] in which he mentioned using adolescent “boy” prostitutes in Thailand. She contended that such apparent support of abusers of minors from a minister was at odds with the objective of the state to discourage sex tourism and the abuse of minors. The National Front started a petition for Mitterrand’s resignation.

The SACD, a society that collects authorship fees for film and theater works and redistributes them to authors, hosted an international petition in favor of Polanski.[78] The petition stated:

By their extraterritoriality, film festivals the world over have always permitted works to be shown and for filmmakers to present them freely and safely, even when certain States opposed this.[78]

A number of celebrities, most of them French, expressed their support for Polanski by means of a public manifesto, whose concluding statements were “Roman Polanski is a French citizen, an artist of international reputation, now threatened to be extradited. This extradition, if brought into effect, would carry a heavy load of consequences as well as deprive the film-maker of his freedom.” The signatories concluded: “we demand the immediate release of Roman Polanski.”[79] Not all assessments coming from the French film-making mainstream have been openly partisan, however. Luc Besson, for instance, remarked: “I do not know the history of the trial. (…) I feel a lot of affection for [Polanski], he’s a man I really like and I know him a bit, our daughters are very good friends but there is one justice, [and] it is the same for everyone”.[80][81]

On 30 September 2009, the French government dropped its public support for Polanski, on the grounds that he was not “above the law”. Government spokesman Luc Chatel said: “We have a judicial procedure under way, for a serious affair, the rape of a minor, on which the American and Swiss legal systems are doing their job,” adding: “One can understand the emotion that this belated arrest, more than 30 years after the incident, and the method of the arrest, have caused.”[82]

Public opinion polls in France consistently show between 65% and 75% of the population want to see him extradited to the United States.[83]

Poland

Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk responded to early reactions by urging his cabinet ministers to exercise calm and reminding them that it is a “case of rape and of punishment for having sex with a child.”[58]

An opinion poll showed that more than 75% of Poles would not like to see Polanski escape another trial.[84]

Switzerland

In Switzerland, the arrest caused widely varying reactions in the media and in politics, while the Swiss minister of justice, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, defended the arrest as legally required under the Swiss-U.S. extradition treaty and as a matter of equality before the law.[63]

United States

When asked if he would consider granting Polanski a pardon, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said: “I think that he is a very respected person and I am a big admirer of his work. But, nevertheless, I think he should be treated like everyone else. It doesn’t matter if you are a big-time movie actor or a big-time movie director or producer.” Schwarzenegger added: “And one should look into all of the allegations, not only his allegations, but the allegations about his case. Was there something done wrong? You know, was injustice done in the case?”[85]

Whereas a number of those in Hollywood have rallied behind Polanski, the Los Angeles Times reports that the rest of the nation seems to have a different perspective: “In letters to the editor, comments on Internet blogs and remarks on talk radio and cable news channels, the national sentiment is running overwhelmingly against Polanski.”[90]

Following the rearrest, David Wells announced that he had lied in the Wanted and Desired documentary, claiming that Marina Zenovich told him that the documentary would not air in America, if he refused to lie in it (which Zenovich denied). Wells then proceeded to blast Polanski, calling him a pedophile rapist.[91][92] Wells said “It’s outrageous. This pedophile raped a 13-year-old girl. It’s still an outrageous offense. It’s a good thing he was arrested. I wish it would have happened years before.”

Legal actions

On 30 September 2009, New York Times reported that Steptoe & Johnson’s Reid Weingarten, a well-known criminal defense lawyer and allegedly a close friend of Attorney General Eric Holder, had been hired by Polanski for his defense along with attorneys Douglas Dalton, Bart Dalton, and Chad Hummel. According to the New York Times:[93][94]

Mr. Weingarten is expected to mount a legal effort to block Mr. Polanski’s extradition before the issue works its way through the Swiss legal system, according to people who were briefed on Mr. Weingarten’s involvement, but spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

A critical step will most likely be a move to stop the extradition before United States authorities send the required documents to Switzerland. Mr. Polanski’s team may do so by arguing either that his crime does not qualify for extradition, because he was originally to have been sentenced to less than a year in prison, or that he has already effectively served his sentence, during a 42-day psychiatric evaluation.

On 21 October, after Swiss authorities had rejected Polanski’s initial pleas to be released on bail pending the result of any extradition hearing, one of his lawyers, Georges Kiejman, floated the idea of a possible voluntary return to the United States in an interview with the radio station Europe 1: “If this process drags on, it is not completely impossible that Roman Polanski could choose to go finally to explain himself in the United States where the arguments in his favor exist.”[95]

On 10 December, Division 7 of the California Court of Appeal of the Second Appellate District heard oral argument on Polanski’s petition for writ of mandate.[53] Television stations including CNN, France 2 and TVN24 also filed applications to cover the hearing.

The Court denied Polanski’s petition in an opinion filed on 24 December. The Court reasoned that since Polanski had adequate legal remedies in 1977 and at present in 2009, there was no reason to carve out a special exception to the fugitive disentitlement doctrine. In arriving at that holding, the Court pointed out that neither side had realized that Polanski had the option of simply asking to be sentenced in absentia, which would result in a hearing where Polanski could directly attack the trial judge’s alleged malfeasance in 1977. On 6 January 2010, upon remand to the superior court, Polanski’s lawyers followed the appellate court’s advice and presented a notarized letter from Polanski in which he asked to be sentenced in absentia. The court asked the parties to brief the issue and scheduled a hearing for 25 January. At the hearing, Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza ruled Polanski must be present in court for sentencing.[98]

On 12 July 2010, the Swiss authorities announced that they would not extradite Polanski to the U.S. in part due to a fault in the American request for extradition. Polanski was no longer subject to house arrest, or any monitoring by Swiss authorities. In a press conference held by Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, she stated that Polanski’s extradition to the U.S. was rejected, in part, because U.S. officials failed to produce certain documents, specifically “confidential testimony from a January 2010 hearing on Mr. Polanski’s original sentencing agreement.”[citation needed] According to Swiss officials, the records were required to determine if Polanski’s 42-day court-ordered psychiatric evaluation at Chino State Prison constituted Polanski’s whole sentence according to the now-deceased Judge Rittenband. Reasoning that if this was the correct understanding, then “Roman Polanski would actually have already served his sentence and therefore both the proceedings on which the U.S. extradition request is founded and the request itself would have no foundation.”[99]

In late October 2014, Polanski was questioned by prosecutors in Kraków, and released. Back in 2010 the Polish prosecutor general stated that under Polish law too much time had passed since the crime for Polanski to be extradited.[102] On 25 February 2015, Polanski appeared in a Polish court for a hearing on the U.S. request for extradition. The judge scheduled another hearing to be held in April or sooner, to give time to review documents that arrived from Switzerland.[103]

On October 30, 2015, Polish judge Dariusz Mazur denied a request by the United States to extradite Polanski. According to the judge, allowing Polanski to be returned to American law enforcement would be an “obviously unlawful” act, depriving the filmmaker of his freedom and civil liberty. His lawyers argued that extradition would violate the European Convention on Human Rights. Polanski holds dual citizenship with Poland and France.[104]

On November 27, 2015, Poland decided it will not extradite Polanski to the U.S. after prosecutors declined to challenge the court’s ruling, agreeing that Polanski had served his punishment and did not need to face a U.S. court again. Preparations for a movie he was working on had been stalled by the extradition request from last year.[105]